


Last Young Renegade

by Mxxnlit



Series: Tell Me Pretty Lies [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Bars and Pubs, Bickering, Blow Jobs, Cuddlefucking, Daycare Teacher Sugawara, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional self-harm, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Angst, Friends With Benefits, Friends With Benefits To Lovers, Frottage, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Inspired by Music, M/M, Men Crying, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Abuse, Pining, Pro Volleyball Player Oikawa Tooru, Safewords, Self-Esteem Issues, Sex, Sex as Self Punishment/Self Harm, Sort Of, Suga Has A Past, abuse does not occur between listed pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:53:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23831143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mxxnlit/pseuds/Mxxnlit
Summary: Their relationship hovered outside of a norm, or term, beyond mutual need. Oikawa needed Suga, Suga needed Oikawa, that was just the way of it.*Oikawa and Sugawara have been friends with benefits for years, catching feelings was inevitable, not that either will admit it.
Relationships: Oikawa Tooru/Sugawara Koushi
Series: Tell Me Pretty Lies [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1730530
Comments: 89
Kudos: 239





	1. Drugs and Candy

**Author's Note:**

> There’s a [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiUUn9YIkvrpHfCPzH98sLl5R6cj1pNnc) now!

As much as Oikawa Tooru was loath to admit weakness or dependence on anything, he had no such qualms about admitting he needed one Sugawara Koushi in his life. Their relationship hovered outside of a norm, or term, beyond mutual need. Oikawa needed Suga, Suga needed Oikawa, that was just the way of it. 

Oikawa had just landed after an away game on the other side of the country, that plus the blaze of the following press conference left his mind whirling in the dangerous way it had since high school, middle school, forever really. He made a call, or rather, a text. While he waited for a reply, his hands drummed against his knees, a distraction from the faint ache within it and himself. He had to laugh, when had he become so addicted to Suga’s company? The refreshing sweetness of his laugh, his smile, his touch?

A moment passed, then another, then a third before his phone dinged with an answer, the usual permission to come over. Oikawa texted back, his usual variant of “on my way” as he set off towards  ~~home~~ , Suga’s. By the time he tumbled out in front of Suga’s front door, noise was spilling out his ears, anxiety and the drive to _ push _ himself until he  _ broke _ sent him thumping fingers against his leg, against the door, waiting with baited breath for the wood to give way to a soft smile and gentle hands. He took a deep breath, steadying himself as much as possible. Suga would see right through him of course, but it always felt just a little bit better to pretend he had anything under control. 

The door finally opened, bringing with it the usual clean scent of lemon spray and the warmer scent of brewing tea. More importantly, it brought Suga into his view. Precious, kind Suga that took his hand and pulled him into the warmth. Who took his jacket, handed him a hot mug, and asked if he wanted to talk about it. He didn’t, of course, but it was kind of him to ask. Oikawa didn’t answer his question, instead he posed his own: “Can I kiss you, Kou-chan?” 

Despite the dubious look he gave, Suga agreed, as usual. Their lips met, gentle, chaste, analytical. It always started like this, trying to figure each other out without words, things like  _ what do you need from me?  _ and  _ how can I help? _

This is all Tooru needs, really, Suga’s warmth against him, soft and lean, hands in his hair and a mouth against his. They break apart too soon, but it’s fine, it’s better if they talk now anyway. Suga looks up at him, head tilted just  _ so _ , eyes shining, licking just so lightly over his lips, and Oikawa falls in love all over again. Not that he could ever admit it, they were strictly friends with benefits, there was no sense risking a mutually beneficial friendship because of some silly little feelings. 

He’s been zoning out, Suga pokes at him and repeats his question for probably the third or so time, “d’you have a long day?”

Tooru hums, gulping down a mouthful of the tea he had already forgotten about, “long enough. Press release, travel, all that. What are you up for tonight? I’m fine with anything, as long as I can stop thinking a bit.”

“It’s that bad? I can take the lead then, if it helps you. Whatever distracts most, right?”

Oikawa looked contemplative for a moment before he surged forward again for a deep languorous kiss, hissing out something muffled that sounded something like “you’re a saint”. Again he pulled back, shifting them to a more comfortable position before carefully laying his weight against Suga. “You remember the safewords?” 

They weren’t needed really, just a precaution. They’d resorted to traffic lights after Suga was too embarrassed to call out Oikawa’s original suggestion of “pancakes” early on in their relationship. Suga laughs at him, as usual, and denies any sort of sainthood. But he acknowledges the request of his memory, assures Tooru he remembers. 

“Say them for me, please, just in case.” Tooru was always careful about this, especially with Suga, and now was no different. It totally had nothing to do with some mild feelings or anything nope, he just didn’t want to deal with the aftermath if things went wrong. Yeah, that’s what it was....

Either way, he had Koushi caged in and kept looking down at him with a blend of thinly veiled desperation, lust, and something pitiable that couldn’t quite be placed. Suga indulges him, of course he does, he always does, and lists the colours and their associated meanings. 

“I’ll be fine, Tooru, promise.” Suga had that look in his eye, that smug devious look that insisted there’s no use arguing. So he doesn’t. Instead his nose ghosts down Suga’s throat until he can press lips to the pit of his neck. He taps Suga’s shoulder, their nonverbal code for  _ can I take this off you? _

Suga strips off his own shirt, and asks Tooru in turn. Their skin presses flush together, warm and familiar, grounding. Tooru resumes his descent down Suga’s torso, leaving his marks littered against pale skin. At first the marks stay light and barely pink, they’d fade before they were done with each other, but the lower and easier to hide, the darker the bruise. He goes slowly, carefully, doing his best to make this good for Suga too, which makes for a great distraction as it were. His distraction lasts nowhere near as long as he’d like, ending with Suga pushing him off and taking a hand to lead the way into the bedroom. 

Oikawa knows every inch of this room by now, knows where Suga keeps “supplies” and where he keeps hoodies. Oikawa knows exactly how much Suga can tolerate the curtains opening in the morning, and he knows where things get folded for the night, he even knows about the tiny secret row of tally marks that grows every time he sees it. Suga won’t tell him about that, and he knows better than to ask outright. He knows what it marks, the noise in his head grows louder. 

Suga pushes until their shins hit the bed and they tumble down. The dim light streaming through the door from the kitchen creates a soft halo of backlighting behind Suga’s starlight hair, hair that soon finds its way around Oikawa’s fingers, fingers that guide them back together into a searing kiss. Their hips slot together, their lips meet again and again until the faint buzzing high of arousal tingles from every point of contact. 

“How do you want me?” Tooru asks, once their remaining garments have been shed, his other question stays bitterly on the edge of his mind:  _ do you even want me? _ His hands grip at Suga’s hips, his head tips back giving Suga room to mark. 

Suga rises, rolling his hips hard as he does, the look he flashes down at Oikawa is  _ dangerous _ . His hands plant on the brunet’s shoulders, his tongue sweeps over his own lips and Oikawa is helpless to do anything but pant beneath him, and stare. Suga moves against him again, hard and slow, and it shouldn’t be as good as it is from what amounts to teenage frottage, but it’s Suga, so of course it is. 

“Let me take care of you tonight,” comes the husky answer, “let’s get you out of that big brain of yours.” How could anyone say  _ no _ to that? To the  _ view _ of Suga leaning back on his heels, fine fingered hand gripping them both together, moving with all the fluidity of water. The sounds Suga pulls from him he’d be embarrassed by any other time, but he knows Suga loves the noise, every groan and pitchy moan, just as he loves drawing the same from Suga. 

His hands smooth up and down strong thighs, his own knees coming up behind, feet planted, to cradle Suga closer against him, to give him leverage to thrust up against Suga’s firm grasp on their cocks. And Suga, Suga sounds  _ divine _ , every soft breathy sigh mounting higher into a glorious crescendo. It’s more than he deserves, Oikawa thinks, his fingers gripping just a little tighter at the bitter thought. Still, it’s  _ him _ with Suga now,  _ him  _ pulling those sounds from the composed ash-blond, and  _ fuck it.  _ Suga isn’t his, will never be, but he isn’t anyone else’s either and for now he’s  _ chosen _ him and isn’t that enough? 

It  _ is _ enough, just like this, hands on each other, bodies moving together like one, the heavy gaze settled thickly on him, it’s enough, it’s more than enough. Oikawa falls to pieces with a cry of warning, though Suga slides off him as in control as ever. The look the shorter gives could stop hearts, though Tooru’s, it seems, missed the message and thuds harder against his sternum. Suga steps away while he recovers, returning shortly after with a foil square and a mostly full bottle of lube. The noise has died down, reduced to a buzz in the background, but the drive to push himself remains, luckily enough he has a target for it now. 

Tooru takes the bottle, spilling some into his fingers, while Suga slides back into his lap. He warms the cool fluid between his fingers, his clean hand settles again on Suga’s hip, the small of his back, drifting warm and weighted while his other hand circles the ring of muscle between Suga’s legs. His lips press to Suga’s breastbone, an offered distraction from the initial discomfort of his finger slowly pushing past yielding flesh. The shiver that follows, the sigh that floats the air, is worth so much more than the sum of all their messy broken parts. 

Suga opens beautifully on Oikawa’s fingers, given a moment of gentleness, the flush dusting his cheeks and ears and chest completing the image of a steadfast rose in bloom. One finger becomes two, becomes three, and they really haven’t been going along long enough at all before Suga surfaces and palms Oikawa’s half-mast to full. He rolls the condom on with smooth ease, and rises to take Oikawa into himself. He sinks slowly, his breath a near hiss at the stretch just this side of aching, just the way he likes. “I’m going to ride you until you  _ break _ ,” he says with that same smug smirk. He’s beautiful, an angel with a dirty mouth, and dirtier moves. Oikawa groans, hips reflexively bucking up, and Suga laughs. 

Some time later, once they’ve cleaned themselves up and lie near each other, sweaty and spent, Oikawa let’s his eyes linger on Suga, really take him in. A heavy weight settles on his brow, melancholy folds itself into the slight frown of his mouth. There's a loneliness hiding in Suga's eyes, long present and unfading, visible if one only knew where to look. He wants to ease that look from Suga's eyes, Tooru does, but it's been years now of this arrangement, of calling and being called, and all he seems able to do is fill his bed, chase the chill away for a night. The chill always returns, settling bone deep and immovable. His own mental noise settles, leaving only his unspoken feelings, though those are getting harder to ignore, harder to pretend away. 

He plucks up one of Suga’s hands, softer than they had been once, no longer volleyball-callused, there’s a bit of paint beneath a couple nails. He presses his lips to the back of that hand, more tender than he should, but he could allow himself this once in a while, could pretend there was anything between them besides physical need. In the dark, he could pretend he was more to Suga than a warm body, more than just another conquest, another tally for his bedposts. He lets the hand drop into his own between them. Suga says nothing, but he doesn’t remove his hand either, just rolls on his side, facing Oikawa, and closes his eyes. It isn’t enough, it will never be. It has to be enough. 

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this far! Comments are always appreciated, and please feel free to come scream with me on tumblr @applepi00 !!


	2. Dirty Laundry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Dirty laundry looks good on you, Kou-chan.”

The next call comes not from Oikawa but from Suga, not exactly a rare occurrence, but the sharp urgency surging through the phone leaves no room for doubt. It’s a rest day from Oikawa’s training schedule, he knows Suga knows this, he can’t help but feel Suga is being considerate of him even in the grip of his own trouble. He makes it to Suga’s within a half hour. 

Hands fly out and clutch at him as soon as the door opens, but not quickly enough that he misses the tremble of those fingers. If he didn’t know Suga as well as he did, he might’ve given in to the desperate clutch of clever fingers and frantic kisses, but he  _ does _ know Suga, and something is  _ wrong _ . He pulls away, holding Suga at arms length by his shoulders, those are shaking too. His face is the real punch in the gut, his brown eyes wide and stricken, like he was just slapped, like he’s about to cry. His shoulders shudder under Oikawa’s hands, and his chest heaves in a troublesomely sad manner. 

“What’s wrong?” Oikawa asks, soft in the air between them, “what’s happened to get you like this?” His grip slackens, relaxes the space between them as his right hand slides up to cup Suga’s face. He has an inkling of what’s going on, chances are he was tripping all over Suga’s history again, though what  _ exactly _ that history is, he still isn’t sure. 

From what he’s gathered over the years, Suga had been far too alone back in college, feeling unneeded and unwanted, and  _ lonesome _ while all his friends scattered to different schools like so many petals on wind. He’d fallen to the wild side: partying, a notorious reputation for one night stands, and then he had pushed everyone away. According to Iwaizumi, who heard the story firsthand from Sawamura afterwards, when Daichi had pushed his way back in it was to find a Suga far more guarded than the one he had known, bruised and battered and  _ cold, _ but still smiling, still insisting he was fine. Nobody ever had worked out  _ who  _ it was that had hurt Suga, lucky enough for the sonofabitch, but the changes were marked. 

The distances Suga had forced between himself and others remained, translucent perhaps, but solid, like ice. His reputation hasn’t waned much either if his tally of conquests were to be trusted, though Oikawa wonders if each tally were a different person or simply a different instance, how many tallies represented him by now? 

There was a tragedy to Sugawara Koushi, unknown, unseen but so easy to trip on while in the dark. He wore it around himself like a funeral shroud, or like too much dirty laundry, heavy and reeking, and needing to be cleaned, but nobody could remove it, clean it, but Suga himself. But someone could be there to hold the basket while he divested, or to hold  _ him  _ when he simply couldn’t work up the energy. 

Right now, Oikawa can hold him, be some kind of support through whatever the hell set him off. It’s not as good as knowing, not as good as mending, but it’s all he can do. 

“Nuth-nothing,” Suga refutes, “nothing happened.” It’s a lie, they both know it, but he doesn’t get called out. He lets Oikawa guide him to a seat on the sofa, let’s Oikawa tuck him against his chest, warm and  _ safe _ . They sit quietly, silent save for Suga’s stuttering breaths. Minutes pass, stretching, slowing, like honey left too long unmoved, and then, finally, a tiny confession: ” _ I can’t be alone right now.” _

He  _ isn’t _ alone, but there’s always been that loneliness lingering around him, the sort of loneliness that company could never fill. He’s strong, Suga is, but even the strongest can break and bend, even the strongest can be hollowed out. And Suga  _ is _ hollow, empty, or so he feels. Most days he’s fine with it, he’s long made his peace and it doesn’t bother him, but other days, days like today, the smallest thing could shatter him into so many broken pieces: a harsh word said carelessly, a flash of a vaguely familiar face, a hand that raises too quickly, anything at all. 

He can’t be alone, not like he was, not like he’s prone to be, and if the only company he can keep is filled with mindless sex then he’d keep it, anything to fill the hollow in his chest.

It’s not mindless sex though, not right now, because Tooru is his  _ friend _ first and foremost, the  _ benefits  _ part is just a bonus. Instead it’s cuddling on his couch against too many throw pillows, being cradled like he’s something precious to someone and it  _ hurts,  _ hurts so much more because it will never be what he wants, it’ll never be enough. 

Oikawa holds him firmly against himself, his long fingers stroking through ash-blond hair. He remains silent, waiting, though he’d never force Suga to speak, not about this, not about all the skeletons he's kept buried away, not about all the pieces he doesn’t know how to mend. Because Tooru gets it, on some level, sometimes there’s no words that work, sometimes words aren’t enough. So he stays, holding Suga until his shoulders stop trembling, touching him gently, the way he deserves to be handled, until his hands release his sleeve and lie still. 

“I feel empty,” Suga whispers, eyes averted, “I hate it.” He turns his head, lifts his chin until he and Tooru are nose to nose. Tooru worries at his bottom lip, the flesh sliding between his teeth until Koushi’s thumb sweeps over it. “I want you to fill me up, Tooru, I don’t  _ want _ to be empty.” 

If Oikawa Tooru were a better man perhaps he could have denied Suga, but he isn’t, and the plea and low whisper goes straight to his groin. He wants what he’s always wanted from this arrangement, a bit of fun, a distraction, but lately something else: he wants to give Suga anything  _ he _ wants. 

This is different, no distractions, it’s not just a bit of mindless fun, because Suga is hurting, something is aching behind his eyes if someone would just  _ look _ . Well Oikawa is looking, seeing the way warm, honeyed brown eyes plead for comfort, for affection, and maybe his love will never be spoken, never be enough but it’s his to give, and give freely. 

He presses his lips to Suga’s, swallows the stuttered hiccups and gasps. He continues to hold him, though Suga shifts and turns in his arms until they’re facing each other fully and he has a lapful of wet-eyed boy. There’s no rush, their bodies moving together slowly, gently. Desperation still flavours their kisses, not unlike last time, but this time there’s  _ more _ . More contact, more reassurance, more  _ love _ , burning and twisting around them with all its unseen tendrils. 

Suga rolls his hips, drawing attention to the  _ interest  _ they both seem to be sporting, Oikawa pulls back. Suga’s eyes still glitter with unshed tears as Oikawa looks at him, as he addresses him with all the searching agony one might address an unforgiving deity, “what can I  _ do _ , what do you  _ want _ from me, Koushi? _ ” _

“I want you in me,” Suga murmurs against his lips, “I want you here with me, so… don’t leave… please. Please  _ stay with me _ .” 

He yelps with how quickly Oikawa pulls him close again, with how he drops his forehead to Suga’s shoulder and  _ stays _ . His hands splay across Suga’s skin, warm against his hip where his shirt has ridden up, warm on his back even through the irritating layers. He rushes his shirt off with enough haste to scratch himself, Oikawa traces the pink marks, soothes them with a glide of his thumb, Suga sighs. 

Oikawa presses his lips against as much skin as he can, mouthing at the underside of Suga’s jaw, down his throat, along his collarbones. He leaves light fairy kisses all down the slim body against him, reverent as Suga’s hands tug at his hair and pull him closer. He tongues at a pink nipple, watches the way the blush blooms like roses from cheek to chest, listens to the symphony of soft contented sounds spilling from this man like starlight. Though Suga’s hands stay in place, the rest of him writhes both in pleasure and impatience until Oikawa pulls away, and pushes him gently down to lie flat along the couch. 

He skims down Suga’s body from there, pausing briefly to let his tongue tickle the older man’s navel before continuing. He looks up through his lashes, eyes still flaring with concern, as he taps at Suga’s waistband. The groan Suga gives is pure annoyance as he shimmies out of his sweatpants to reveal pale, bare skin. This leaves him remarkably less dressed than his partner of the evening, a cause for a very convincing pout, but not all bad while he still had large hands warm on his skin and a mouth kissing at the sensitive skin of his inner thighs. The kisses soon turn to bites, leaving marks dark and possessive here where nobody else would see, not unless they were to do what Oikawa was. Suga’s hands find purchase once more in soft brown hair as Oikawa bites a blooming bruise at the very top of his thigh. Then Oikawa takes him in, levelling a shrewd eye up at him as he takes Suga into his mouth. Maybe because he’s already worked up, or maybe because Oikawa has him long memorized, but the first touches of a tongue circling his slit and running down his shaft coaxes him to full hardness within minutes, and has him arching his back, his hips rising from the couch and pressing him further into the heat of Oikawa’s mouth. He keens and then that heat moves away, another spreading across his body as warm arms scoop him up against a solid chest and lift. Oikawa sets him down on his bed and shrugs off his own clothes smoothly and efficiently. 

He admires for a moment, the vision before him: Suga in low lighting, sheets rucked up around him, rosy flush like a glow, and a smile, small and coy from under glittering eyes. He kisses him slowly, softly, a touch of saline caught on their lips. Suga welcomes him readily, lips parting, tongue nudging out to tease Tooru’s to tangle with him. He does of course, because he wants to help, to comfort, and this is what Suga has asked of him. The skin beneath his hands is warm and smooth as he slides them into Suga’s hair, and down his back over the swell of his ass.

“Are you sure about this? We can do something else, I don’t want you to regret this…” He scans Suga’s face for any sign of hesitation but all he finds is rolling eyes and hands that clap to his face.

“ _ Tooru _ , it’s fine, I’ve never regretted  _ you. _ ” The intensity of his gaze softens alongside his grip until his expression is merely fond and his fingers running lightly against Oikawa’s face. “ _ Distract me _ , Tooru, I promise I’ll tell you if I change my mind.”

Whatever warmth had flickered to life within Oikawa’s chest at Suga’s confession sputtered and died with the reminder of what he was, what purpose he was serving. He’s just a  _ distraction, _ someone to fill the space in Suga’s bed when he can’t stand to be alone, when the weight of his past gets to be too much. It shouldn’t bother him, he  _ knows  _ this already, but it’s always the things he doesn’t want to see that catch his attention. They both have their secrets, tripping over them is inevitable.

He presses kisses along Suga’s jaw, savouring every sigh and brush of hands against him. He’s nibbling at an earlobe when Suga leans back and stretches toward his night table. He turns on his side and Oikawa slides behind him. He splays a hand against the shorter’s chest, holding Suga firmly against his chest, his breath warm against ashen hair and a rosy ear. His other arm pillows Suga’s head, drawing them closer together. 

“What are you doing?” The question lacks any accusatory bite, remaining simply curious. Suga continues stretching himself open as he speaks.

Taking a pause from his one handed fumble with a condom, Oikawa replies: “Taking care of you, obviously.” He drops his chin to peck at slim shoulders before returning to what he was doing. 

Suga hums, turning his head to look back at the brunet, his clean hand coming up to care through Oikawa’s hair. “Tooru,” he says, “I’m ready, could you…?” 

_ Of course, anything _ . “Yeah, just let me-” He lines up, and rolls in, his hand coming back to Suga’s chest to pull him into his movement. He groans, triggering a shiver in Suga as the sound rushes by his ear. The warmth against him, soft and gentle; the warmth around him, tight and intense; he could stay forever in this moment, but Suga moves against him, rolls his spine and it’s all Oikawa can do to stay collected. He moves with Suga in slow waves; he can feel intimately every shift in pulse or breath, every tense or relaxation of muscles beneath his hands, against his body and he chases every positive reaction. He keeps up a running dialogue, soft and sweet and caring, against Suga’s ear, because this isn’t a one night stand or a frantic fuck, it’s  _ making love _ even if he can only call it that in his head. 

Suga stutters a cry and Oikawa shifts his hips to stroke the same spot again and again and again.

“You’re doing so good, Koushi,” he praises, “so good for me. Do you feel good too?  _ Tell me.” _

Suga’s back bows, his head back and rolling against Oikawa as he shakes his head, eyes screwed shut. With every gentle thrust the trembling in his limbs becomes more pronounced and his cries more stretched out, though softer, as if he could go to sleep like this, surrounded by comfort and Oikawa. “ _ Yes,  _ god,  _ Tooru don’t stop. _ It feels good —  _ oh! — _ you always make me feel good.” His hand clutches at Oikawa’s against his chest, holds it tighter, pushes it higher to rest against his throat. 

The trust, and the words, god the  _ words _ , stroke nicely at Oikawa’s ego which in turn surges straight to the warm lava pool residing low in his gut. He continues on, rolling into Suga with the same slow, measured pace, each push sure and forceful as an ocean current until he hears Suga’s warning cry, until he feels the vice-like clench around himself. Suga comes hard, sputtering out in the same slow waves as Tooru has been fucking into him for the past however long. It’s only then that Oikawa gives himself permission to follow, and he does with a cry buried in Suga’s hair. 

For a moment they lie together breathing, and it’s nice really basking in the afterglow, but it’s nicer without tacky drying fluids to worry about. Oikawa pulls out, pulling a cringe from them both, and goes about the mundanity of getting them both cleaned up. Once they are, and he returns to the bed, Suga blinks up at him, eyes lidded and still dazed, enough so that Tooru would almost be concerned if the words that followed weren’t so clear and lucid. “Why do you keep doing this? With me?” Tooru doesn’t dare breathe. “I’m a mess, I've got all this baggage — or what do you call it? Dirty laundry? — I’ve got all this dirty laundry I’m making you deal with with me. Wouldn’t it be easier to hook up with some fan? Less burden, less strings… Why bother with me?”

Objectively, yeah a casual hook up might be easier, but how could he trust a random stranger with the mess of his head? How could he trust some stranger to take care of Suga in his place either? Maybe, if they had never met again after high school they’d be with strangers, but having lived through so much together, could they really be alright alone? 

Oikawa smiles. He wraps Suga up in his arms with a last kiss to his forehead and Suga melts against him. “Dirty laundry looks good on you, Kou-chan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to have this up two days ago, then I fell down a rabbit hole, wrote a love song about zombies and here I am. With 2.7k of smut and angst, enjoy.


	3. Good Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pancake Incident, and other stories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I rewrote this three times and I’m still not 100% about, but I figure if I kept redoing it I would never post it so here’s chapter three.

Another day another phone call, but this one comes not with a plea, but an invitation. “Hey Tooru, I’m sure Iwaizumi already told you, but some of us are going out this weekend, are you going?”

In fact he had been planning to go regardless, it wasn’t often Iwa-chan came up from Miyagi (he  _ could  _ move to the city, he’s good at what he does, but he’ll also insist that there’s plenty of reckless overworked athletes for him to help  _ there _ as well, usually with a rather pointed look. By now, it’s a pointless discussion.) and Tooru really was looking forward to seeing him, the promise of a casual Suga was just icing. 

“Yup~” he answers with an obnoxious pop, “wouldn’t miss it, not when Iwa-chan and Dai-chan are taking time out to come visit. Are you going?”

There’s a beat where you can hear breathing over the line, a distant bubble of laughter that indicates Suga’s still at work, probably ducked into a washroom or supply room to make the call. Not that Tooru can really say anything while he’s lingering in the locker room himself. 

There’s an odd note to Suga’s voice when he answers, something akin to wistfulness but what that means is anyone’s guess, “yeah, I’m going. Did you want to head over together, I can pick you up?”

“Yeah, sure that sounds good. I gotta go, but text me after okay? I’ll see you then!” After exchanging goodbyes, they hang up, and Oikawa joins his team for practice. 

It’s hours later, once he’s pleasantly sore and freshly showered, that he thinks to check his messages. There’s one from Iwaizumi, reminding him of his promise to show up, the time they’re supposed to meet, and an address. The address is odd, usually unneeded, and it’s certainly not the address of their usual place, but it seems familiar too, though he can’t quite place it. 

The other message is from Suga, detailing when he’ll be by to pick him up, alongside a comment about not taking forever doing his hair. Which, for the record, is  _ fair  _ even if he wants to argue. He texts both back an affirmation and a string of emoji. 

He’s left with a bit over an hour to get himself ready before he should be expecting Suga, which may have once been panic inducing, but he’s less concerned with appearances now, not really into all that posturing and pettiness he used to be built from. No, he’s content with himself, for the most part, and an hour is more than enough time to be presentable. 

It’s also enough time to throw together a quick bite, and extras to offer Suga since he has a nasty habit of missing meals when there’s other things to do. 

He packs the food up, double checks himself in the mirror, and by then it’s any minute that Suga should be knocking. Sure enough, three minutes later the buzzer goes off and he opens the door to let Suga in. 

He looks good, not that that’s surprising, in a clean grey button down and non-paint-smeared jeans. His dark jacket is one they had picked out together (it’s nice  _ someone  _ acknowledges his fashion sense) and it balances out the light shirt and Suga’s pale colouring. 

Oikawa pulls his eyes away, cognizant of the fact he was staring a little too long (appreciating! Not staring! Not ogling! Appreciating!) “You look good, Kou-chan! Have you eaten anything yet?”

“Ah, thanks, you too,” Suga smiles, casual, friendly, refreshing. “I haven’t no, but I’m alright.”

Having anticipated this, Oikawa was already holding the container out to him with a click of his tongue, “ _ tch _ , you can’t go drinking on an empty stomach Kou-chan, you’ll make yourself sick.” Once the container is passed off, he grabs his jacket to throw on and gets to lacing up his shoes. He looks back at Suga to find him looking down at the onigiri, a soft expression held on his face. 

“You made me a snack?”

Oikawa nods, “yeah, I figured you wouldn’t have eaten. You ready?” Suga nods, follows him out, and waits patiently for him to lock up. 

“If you want I can drive,” Oikawa offers, “so you can eat on the way.”

Suga’s eyes go wide, his brows curve into a look that screams regret (which is beyond rude, Tooru thinks, because he isn’t a  _ bad _ driver). Suga gets in the driver's seat before he answers, “no, I'd like to get there on time, besides it’s not the regular place tonight.”

“First of all,  _ rude _ , I’m a  _ great _ driver.”

“Debatable.” 

“Again,  _ rude _ . Second, which place is it? I know  _ where _ it is but I can’t for the life of me remember the actual bar.”

Though Suga faces the road, the roll of his eyes is still visible, but so is the corner of his smile and that is more than worth a little teasing. 

“Remember that reunion thing we all went to a couple years ago? It’s that place. Some of the kouhai are going, it made more sense to go there where it’s bigger than try to get everyone packed in at Lupin’s.”

That… makes sense and everything but…  _ the reunion _ , that had been both a terrible and an excellent night. On the one hand, it had been the night that started this… whatever this is between him and Koushi. On the other hand: “promise me you are not going to try leaving with some stranger.”

“What?”

“Or if you do leave with someone let me know first, I’d like to be reasonably sure whoever it is isn’t a total asshole.”

“Tooru,” Suga says, mild exasperation bleeding into his tone, “What are you talking about?”

Tooru, in turn, blinks at him before throwing his hands up. “The reunion! Remember? You were going to leave with that guy, the mean looking one that totally could’ve bench pressed you?”

Suga pulls his eyes from the road to squint at him. “I left with  _ you _ that night, same as I’m planning to do tonight, what do you take me for?”

“That’s the other thing,” Oikawa exclaims with a rather dramatic pointing flourish of his hands, “we are not having a repeat of the Pancakes Incident!”

Suga’s squint twists tighter, his whole face reading as confused while he turns back to the road. “What does the Pancakes Incident have to do with the bar? That was, what, a month later?”

Now Oikawa’s turn for confusion, “What are  _ you _ talking about? The Pancakes Incident was the same night as the reunion? What are  _ you _ calling the Pancakes Incident?”

“Okay wait, we’re not getting into this while I’m driving, can we push pause on this?”

What’s a man supposed to do, refuse? No, he can nod and shift conversation to small talk for the rest of the ride. They talk about their days, Oikawa about his practice and his teammates antics (so much fewer antics than when they were teens), and Suga about the daycare and the regular kids (“Kazumi-chan went around giving everyone a number today, mostly random high numbers and nonsense, but she called me her number two.” “That’s so sweet Kou-chan!”) until they pull into a parking lot of Iron Wall. With the car in park, Suga turns to face him properly. “Alright, what are you going on about? As I remember, the Pancakes Incident was about a month into …this, and is the reason we no longer use the word “pancakes” in an intimate setting.”

Oikawa gapes, understanding lighting up his features with every word until he exclaims, “Kou-chan that’s not the Pancakes Incident! That was the  _ Disaster _ , the  _ Pancakes Incident _ was…”

~Two years previous~

The clink of glasses and the reverberant din of voices and house music. Low, coloured lights by the dance floor and brighter yellow ones above the tables. A large gaggle of twenty-somethings take over at least three of the tables socializing. Here: the seniors of the high school volleyball circuit, twenty three years old, roughly, fresh out of school or still swimming through, and gathered for a five year reunion of sorts. Some of them would be leaving soon to travel, to play internationally, though most of them would be staying in Japan, however spread apart. 

Oikawa sits at one of the occupied tables, surrounded by his fellow Seijoh alumni, Hanamaki, Matsukawa, and Iwaizumi, along with Iwaizumi’s roommate, Sawamura Daichi. They begin as you’d expect, catching up on what they’ve missed since they last saw one another, and their plans for the future. They continue as you may expect as well, drinking and snacking until they reach a comfortable tipsy buzz and Oikawa drags them all with him towards the dance floor: Makki follows without complaint, either actually wanting to dance or just looking for a laugh, Mattsun follows to keep Makki from getting into too much trouble, Iwaizumi goes with the most hesitance but old habits die hard and he falls easily back into the role of handler. Daichi alone stays at the table, waiting for his friends from Karasuno. 

The dance floor is crowded, the floor thumping along to the beat of the bass line as they mingle. It’s a few songs later, once he’s lost all his friends, that Oikawa spots  _ him _ . There, through a gap in the crowd, glorious beneath blue and pink neon lights, stands Karasuno’s refreshing former vice-captain, Sugawara Koushi. They’d seen each other occasionally over the past five years, there’s only so many student-popular hangouts in Tokyo, but despite that they remained only acquaintances. He calls out to him and Suga looks over. There’s a distinct shadow along one cheek, patches showing through where makeup has smudged but Suga  _ smiles _ . 

They find themselves chatting, drinking together, rejoining the group, hitting it off, eventually making plans to hang out again before returning to general chatting. Suga doesn’t offer any explanation for the bruise on his cheek, and Oikawa wouldn’t ask but he sees Daichi casting concerned sidelong glances at the blond and resolves to keep an eye out as well. Which works out lovely when he sees a tipsy Suga by the bar with some guy at least a head taller than him and brawny enough to give Iwa-chan a run for his money. Now normally, he’d leave things be, it’s none of  _ his _ business who Suga hooks up with or heads home with, but the shorter man  _ is _ visibly intoxicated, and it wouldn’t be very friendly to let anything happen to him while he’s like this, would it? 

“Suga-chan,” he cheers as he joins them at the counter, the stranger glares at the interruption. Unperturbed, Oikawa continues, “we just got food at the table, come eat.” Flush faced, Suga puffs up his cheeks and stumbles through a few sentences regarding his ‘new friend’. Said new friend’s hands flex and there’s a certain nasty vibe surrounding the man that sits badly in Oikawa’s stomach, he asks again for Suga to follow him.

“He wants to stay here,” the man snaps, standing a little taller, a little more upright. This could be a problem if this continues, a fight was certainly not in the plan for tonight, but then nor was any need to defend a friend from a creep. Luckily, another voice joins them. 

“What’s going on here?” comes Daichi’s solid baritone, followed closely by Iwaizumi’s familiar hand clapping onto his shoulder with a comment about taking too long. In face of the odds, the stranger sits back down, air dismissive, and Suga finally agrees to return with them, or at least with Daichi. 

With time and food, the group sobers by degrees and the issue of rides arises. Most would be taking the trains, short trips for Makki and Mattsun across the city, much longer for those like Iwa and Daichi that came in from other prefectures for the day. In the end, that leaves Oikawa to drop off those that lived too close for a train ride and too far to walk as he had only had a pair of drinks at the start and by now had sobered up. On the plus side, only three of them, including himself, needed a ride. 

The first drop off is Nekoma’s former libero, polite and steady as he opens his door quietly, mindful of his likely sleeping roommate. This leaves Suga and Oikawa alone in the car, with no distraction from the shorter man’s flirting. Flirting is one thing, a little teasing and kind of cute, hell  _ Suga _ is kind of cute, and there’s no harm in flirting  _ back,  _ right? 

They pull into the lot nearest Suga’s flat, and Suga stands steady. “Do you want to come upstairs?” he invites, and really what’s the harm in making sure he gets in alright? Oikawa agrees, locks his car and follows Suga to his door. He’s decided by the time they get upstairs that Suga is alright, after all he’s walking straight, the flush had faded from his face, and he hadn’t been slurring to begin with, from there everything spirals. 

An invitation to come in for tea gets him indoors and somehow or other he finds himself half dressed and making out with a man he could barely even call a friend. Suga, who’s just as gorgeous in shitty lamp light as he is under flattering neons, pulls away, wiping the back of his hand over kiss-swollen lips. “Have you ever done this?” he asks, and at the likely unamused expression Tooru gives him, amends: “with another guy I mean.”  _ Yes,  _ but that doesn’t change the fact he probably should be going and he’s halfway through some kind of excuse and something about not wanting to take advantage when Suga cuts him off:  _ “Stay, Tooru.” _ He does. 

It’s sometime later, when they’ve divested of their clothes and Suga’s breath is heavy in his ear whispering things like  _ harder _ and  _ hit me _ and  _ yes, _ that Tooru makes up his mind this is either one of the worst decisions he’s made in a while, or one of the best. They started quickly, prep being rushed and he normally would have taken time, made sure Suga,  _ Koushi  _ as he’s been reminded, was okay, and he wasn’t one for hurting anyone else but Koushi asked it of him and it’s  _ good. _ Until it isn’t. 

They’re going along swimmingly, moving together frantically, panting dirty things to one another, saying the  _ mean _ sort of dirty things bothers Oikawa but Suga reacts  _ beautifully _ to it once he’s begun, until he doesn’t. One minute everything is glorious and the next, Suga is still and stiff and  _ crying. _ What do you  _ do?  _ What’s the protocol?

He pulls away and Koushi curls in on himself. Tooru finds his boxers between attempts at comforting words and pulling sheets and blankets over the other but still Suga won’t answer him. The cries are soft, nearly silent, stifled by a palm like he’s had a long practice in hiding his tears. Quiet, but that’s a lot of crying… 

Tooru returns a minute later with a glass of cool tap water, setting it down beside the bed. He sits beside it, cross legged on the floor facing Suga. He tries to be helpful, really he does, all soothing tones and a hesitant holding of hands, but in the end, Suga pulls himself to a semblance of  _ together  _ without really acknowledging any of Oikawa’s attempts. But he drinks the water. It’s small, it’s something, it’s enough. 

“I’m sorry you had to see me like that,” he says, low, measured, calm; the tone is a  _ lie. _ “You didn’t have to stay with me.”

“Well I couldn’t have just  _ left.” _

“No I guess not, sorry.”

Suga’s tone stays flat and dead and his eyes won’t lift higher than the rim of his glass. His hand stays rested in Oikawa’s but if anything it’s more likely he hasn’t noticed it than any conscious decision.  _ Still. _

“I don’t care about that,” Oikawa states, hand gripping more firmly, “I don’t mind but I want to know  _ why,  _ I want to help but I can’t if I don’t know what happened. If I don’t know, I can’t prevent it next time.” That’s… presumptive, who said there was a next time?  _ Still. _

Suga finally looks at him, finally gains some sort of inflection to his voice with the single word:  _ why? _

That’s a good question? Why was he here? Why does he care? “Believe it or not Kou-chan, I actually like you as a person, I wouldn’t have done any of this with you if I didn’t. I… I’d like to be your friend, and friends help each other.”

A beat. 

“...I didn’t like it.” Oikawa’s heart sinks. “The… mean words, or the roughness.”

“But you said—?”

“I know what I said!” There, Life. A flash of frustration, a glint of a grimace, emotion. “I thought, I thought it would be nice, it’s been nice  _ before, _ but it  _ wasn’t. _ It was too much and I didn’t know what to do or what to say about it being too much until it got to the point it did. 

“You’re a good guy, Tooru, thanks, but this might not be a great time for making new friends. Can we forget about this?” The look in his eyes feels too vulnerable, still a little too frantic. The suggestion makes sense, of course it does, but Oikawa… Oikawa doesn’t want this to be the end before they’ve even tried. 

“We don’t need to forget this, if anything we should learn from it!” Suga twists his features into something disbelieving but Oikawa’s already sprinting into his next bit, “what you need is a safeword! So you don’t have to think about the right thing to say or do next time it’s too much or it’s not good for you. Pick one, what’s something you would never say during sex normally?”

A little shell shocked, Suga only stumbles out a  _ what  _ before Oikawa continues, “how about pancakes? As a temp, just until you think of one. Anytime you’re uncomfortable, with anything, you say pancakes and it stops, everything, anything.”

A hand raises and presses against his lips, he sputters off to silence. “You’re saying that like you’ll be here.” That’s true, he is, he won’t be, it’s rude to presume, his heart must be tangled in his intestines now with how low it’s sunk. “Don’t feel obligated, but I think I’d like it if you were.”

Oh. 

_ Oh.  _

“I’ll be here, Kou-chan, whenever you want.”

They work on it, slowly, the friendship thing as well as their boundaries. They hang out, see films, grab meals together, ask each other advice, beat each other at video games, all the things friends do. But they also sleep together, slowly building active communication, discussing what works and what doesn’t, setting their boundaries. 

Suga knew his boundaries, the issue was voicing them, enforcing them, any question about why that was led only to a vague gesture at air or at fading bruises. Oikawa, on the flip side, was vocal about what he did or didn’t like after that first time, the issue was more he got nervous, about being  _ too much.  _ Too much to deal with, too much trouble to bother with. 

They work on it. Sure, a month or so later the Disaster happens, and their whole system goes for an overhaul, but overall, they’re better, slowly, together. 

~Present Day~

They’re in the parking lot of a bar arguing about something called the  _ Pancake Incident,  _ it’s not exactly their finest moment, but it’s a reminder, and a bit of a laugh, and they walk into the bar with a mutual understanding that this time won’t end with any similar messes. Some people are already mingling around, though it’s still a little early for the younger, wilder crowd. 

Iron Wall is exactly as remembered, the same neon blue and pink lights by the dance floor, the same yellow bulbs over the tables. The same glasses clink together and if it weren’t for their diminished group they could’ve stepped through time. 

Kageyama Tobio sits alone, familiar red headed partner absent from his side. Iwaizumi plonks down a beer in front of him shortly after they arrive, along with some talk that was probably very encouraging because Iwaizumi had always been a bit better at comforting people than Oikawa ever was, maybe because he spent much of their shared childhood comforting Tooru in the brusque way he had. Daichi greets them both and exchanges a few looks with Koushi that must be some sort of captain/vice or team parent telepathy because they both understand and leave him by the door to go check in on their kouhai. There’s a few other guys around, quite a few from Karasuno, not that their names jump out, but it’s early yet. It’s lonely yet, standing by the door like an idiot. Tooru slides into the booth opposite Tobio, opposite Daichi and Suga too since Daichi seems to have decided on a speech and Suga is wacking the poor kid in some kind of mock motivational smack. 

“So! Tobio-chan, long time no see. Where’s Chibi-chan, isn’t he usually with you nowadays?”

Kageyama fixes him with a trademark glare, how  _ scary! _ But then it crumples, and he looks every bit the sad, lonely little boy he used to be. “We had a fight, he isn’t coming tonight.” Interesting, what sort of a fight could be that big when the freak duo was fighting near constantly on a regular basis? Better yet, “what are you doing here then? As much as we love to have you with us, don’t you think it’d be a better idea to try working it out with your boyfriend?” Right, like he’s one to talk when he can’t even  _ ask _ the man he loves to consider him in that light.

Backtrack: Tobio curls his lip somehow more surly than ever as he practically spits his next sentence. “He’s going to  _ Brazil, _ he got an international offer.”

Oh. That’s… good for Hinata but from the sounds of it, he hadn’t said anything before accepting it, or it’s not accepted yet and they’re both a little dim, but more likely Hinata had accepted immediately and told Kageyama afterwards. How wouldn’t he feel like he was being abandoned? A misunderstanding, if they can talk about it; a mess if they can’t. 

Tooru let’s Suga and Daichi take back over the whole rationalizing/lecturing/comforting thing, they’re better at it, and Tobio had been their teammate, not his. If he wishes the younger man luck later on with a drink pressed to his hand, that’s nobody’s business but his own. 

Makki and Mattsun arrive later, as do Azumane Asahi, Karasuno’s glass hearted ace, and Kunimi and Kindaichi and a few others. The evening passes uneventfully, filled with chatting and making of plans to meet again, stories of everyday life, all over drinks and snacks. By the end, they’re all alright to get home, and it didn’t matter that Oikawa had been zoning out a bit, and that he hadn’t really wanted to drive people home if they needed it but would’ve if asked, because Suga’s saying  _ come home with me _ and he’s saying  _ of course _ and Makki is shouting  _ get a room _ but it doesn’t matter. 

It doesn’t matter that he’s a smitten idiot. It doesn’t matter that this means nothing. It doesn’t matter that he’s nothing but a tally mark, and maybe a friend. None of it matters because there’s a smile on everyone’s face, especially Suga’s and it’s a beautiful neon night. Simply, it’s  _ enough. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come chat with me on [Tumblr!](https://applepi00.tumblr.com)


	4. Dark Side of Your Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is too much, and Tooru isn’t enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is way shorter than I originally intended but it’s okay, it’ll move along. It’s late but I wanted to get this out before I forget to post.

They went out that night as friends, so how did he end up here? Like this? On his knees, braced, and Suga warm across his body, with his forehead pressed to the small of Tooru’s back? Where had the joy within him gone? That elation at being chosen? It had been there when Suga said  _ Come home with me  _ and was still there when they’d gone through the door; it stayed through  _ Can I touch you?  _ and through kissing and stripping, through  _ Lie down,  _ through  _ I’ve got you, Tooru. _ But at some point, slowly, surely, then all at once it seems, that elation sunk, burned, crashed. 

Maybe it was the damn tallies. From where his head rests he can just see the edges of a row, the last notch still has wood dust in it for god's sake, it’s a nasty reminder to hit after a pleasant evening, worse still to hit it while Suga’s inside him. 

He wanted this, he did, he agreed, and it still felt  _ good  _ but it’s not right. It’s  _ too much, _ and he’s still  _ not enough. _

Not enough of a friend, because Suga still won’t  _ talk  _ to him, not about anything important. He won’t say anything about his past, he won’t say anything about his baggage and the damn hole in him that Tooru’s tried for two years now to patch to no avail because…  _ because. Because maybe Suga doesn’t trust him. _

Not enough of a lover, not that he’s been given a chance. What good does flirting do when he can’t voice his  _ own _ feelings and hang ups and history? If he can’t even ask then he can’t be any sort of date, not really. 

Which leaves him here. A decent lay. Familiar and safe, no need for worrying about getting robbed or anything in the night if it’s  _ just Tooru. _ No need to worry about getting sick, or keeping any sort of appearances if it’s  _ just Tooru. _ No need to worry about getting hurt or hurting anyone else if it’s  _ just Tooru.  _ A decent lay, an easy fuck,  _ a notch in the bedpost and nothing more. _

Koushi stills and it’s like he’s hearing from underwater, which almost makes sense with how cold he feels, with how difficult it is to breathe. There’s a murmur of words, or maybe waves by his ear, but they don’t make sense and he’s spiraling back into a cycle of nerves and self-doubt and it isn’t  _ right.  _

_ He’s fine with himself, so who the hell is Koushi to fuck it up? _

_ Of all people, why would he have given that power to the one person that would do it without qualm? _

_ The only person that could never love him the way he wants them to, if at all? _

“Red,” Tooru gasps as he surfaces, chest heaving like he really had been underwater. The word becomes a chant, a mantra, with every pant and restrained sob. How pathetic is this?  _ This is what he wanted _ so why freak out now? Hell, he’s used  _ Suga’s  _ safeword, like he has any right to it, like this had been intense or he had some sort of trauma to warrant it, but he doesn’t, this wasn’t, so why the hell is he upset?

To his credit, Suga handles the situation more smoothly than his concerned fidgeting would suggest. Within seconds of the first  _ red,  _ they’re separated and Suga pulls a blanket over their shoulders, touches him gently, all soothing words and soft hands. “I’m going to get you some water,” the blond says, “unless you need me to stay. Can you tell me, Tooru, what you need?”

Like he  _ could.  _ Like he could fuck up what they have, their dynamic, by saying stupid shit like  _ I need  _ you. _ I need you to need me, as more than stress relief.  _ He must’ve stayed silent too long because the next bit of reality he actually sees is Koushi setting a glass of water down on the bedside table and crawling into bed beside him. It’s… admittedly  _ nice _ being held, but bitterness lodged itself in his guts: he only gets held when it falls in line with their arrangement, never out of affection. 

But that’s his own damn fault isn’t it? Because he doesn’t talk about anything real  _ either,  _ he comes here for  _ distraction _ instead of coping, even if what he needs distraction from is  _ this. _ From his role here, from his stupid misguided feelings.

The crushed, burning feeling in his stomach rises, flares, burns red hot in his chest but it leaves his mouth cold: “I can’t do this anymore.”

Suga freezes, like the ice in Oikawa’s voice has encased him. He moves stiffly after, still trying to soothe, to calm the storm. “It’s alright,” he shushes, “we don’t have to do anything, not if you don’t want to.” His tone is carefully calm, but Tooru could swear he hears disappointment lurking beneath the surface, he isn’t sure whether it makes him upset or angry. Either way, he pulls away from Suga to sit up on his own strength. He plucks up the glass of water, needing some distraction from the way Suga’s eyes burn against his back, needing something to buy him time to collect himself. 

A glass of water can only hold off the inevitable so long. No matter how measured each sip, eventually it runs out. 

_ The glass is empty, make a choice. _

“I can’t do this with you anymore, this whole sleeping together thing.” There, it’s out, he’s said it. 

He can’t bear to look up, but he feels Suga shifting, the mattress moving with him until they’re seated next to each other, a solid foot or more of space between them. Both of their legs dangle over the edge of the bed, though his attention stays on his own knees, Oikawa can see Suga’s in his periphery, can just make out the motions of fidgeting. And Suga asks, because  _ of course _ he does, he has every right to, but he doesn’t ask  _ why, _ he asks: “did I do something wrong?” 

It’s a loaded question. Yes. No. Both. Neither. 

“I’m in love with you,” Tooru chokes out in lieu of a proper answer. “I have been for ages, I thought I could handle this, but I  _ can’t. I can’t keep doing this.  _ I can’t keep filling your bed, not if it doesn’t mean anything. I know you don’t feel the same, but how many notches do you want me to be? You only want me when you’re  _ lonely _ , Koushi, I just want you to  _ want _ me.”

Suga curls in on himself, knees up by his chest, an arm around them; his fingers twist in the sheets while he deliberates his words. “Are you sure,” he asks, and doesn’t that sting? “You fall a little in love with everyone, that’s who you are, isn’t this the same?”

Maybe at the start, but that was before he had  _ known _ Koushi in any sort of way. Maybe he did fall a little bit for everyone he met: strangers on the train, servers at restaurants, etc, etc, but none of them could compare to the intense warmth of his feelings for Suga, nor could those shallow attractions ever reach the depths of affection reserved for people he genuinely cared for. 

“No, it’s not the same. It’s  _ you,  _ how could it ever be that shallow?”

A beat. A breath. A hand on his knee.

“I’m sorry, Tooru, I didn’t know.” Koushi presses a kiss to the brunet’s knuckles, it feels more like an apology than any words could, the kiss that follows against his cheek feels like goodbye. “I can’t love you like that. If I could, I would, but I… I  _ can’t.”  _

This is all Tooru had ever hoped for, realistically, about how a confession would be received. He’s being let down gently, maybe more gently than he deserved, what with that  _ I would if I could.  _ He could still preserve their friendship, with a simple phrase lined up neatly on his tongue. The air won’t leave him now, the words root themselves down, and the world flares. 

Every colour saturates against his eyes, every sound amplifies tenfold but even that is muted by the thud of his pulse in his ears, throat, hands. Even the air attacks him, brushing conspicuously against his nose, lips, and he swore he wouldn’t cry or make this any more messy a relationship than it needed to be but still the water that drowns him from within spills. 

“Just for tonight,” he finds himself saying, “just one more time, can we act like usual? Can I pretend, just this once, that you like me?”

There’s little attractive about him now, he knows, all snotty and wet eyed, naked and trembling like a virgin, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because Suga still gives him the same soft, fond smile, even if it’s subdued by warring conflict. Suga moves closer, settles into an embrace, and pets Tooru’s hair. It’s nice, comforting, but it’s still tinged with melancholy, with  _ goodbye. _

_ It’s fine. They’re still friends, they can still make this work.  _

In the end, Tooru goes home and they both spend the night alone. 

The clock blinks a quarter past four by the time Oikawa crawls into his own bed, cold and empty in the lifeless loneliness of his apartment. 

He doesn’t cry.

Or, if he does, there’s nobody to know. 

His eyes hurt, like someone’s rubbed sand into them; his lungs hurt too, like he’s still breathing water, but none of it compares to the ache in his chest, his heart, his soul. 

_ He’s ruined everything, hasn’t he? Made everything awkward and tense when he could’ve just shut up and went along with it, as usual. He could’ve stayed in the darkness of Suga’s room, with all the notches in his bedpost, with all the skeletons in his closet, and everything would’ve been fine.  _

_ He could’ve said something earlier, when he first started to fall, he could’ve saved himself from the agony of  _ wanting,  _ from the overwhelming disappointment of rejection now that he’s in so deep.  _

_ It’s not about missing his chance, if it were just that he’d be fine, eventually, but he’s losing his  _ **_friend._ ** _ Who else could he hang around with at ridiculous times on a whim? Who else could he trust with the mess in his brain? The only other person he ever had given that trust to now lives two hours away by train, and it wouldn’t be fair to call him constantly because of some silly little doubts. _

The sky is dark, speckled lightly by stars he knows and the occasional blink of airplane light he doesn’t. The clouds show the first sign of dawn: their grey masses dappled pink and orange by fresh sunlight just below the horizon. The sky lightens by degrees, faintly, then brighter and brighter until the fat orange yolk of a sun peeks over the buildings and between them. A new dawn. Dawn means Hope, usually, and the thought helps. Dawn doesn’t chase the doubt away, doesn’t break the spiral, but it puts him on an incline, points him in the right direction, and maybe, just maybe, he’ll straighten himself out enough to decide what he really wants. What he really  _ needs. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always appreciated! Or feel free to drop me an ask on tumblr!


	5. Nice2KnoU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Oikawa spirals and literal laundry gets done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This chapter didn’t want to work but the next chapter is coming along swimmingly so hopefully there will be a shorter wait period! Can I interest you in a [ playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiUUn9YIkvrpHfCPzH98sLl5R6cj1pNnc) in the meantime?

The rise of the sun after a fretful night’s sleep did little to no good to make anything clear. Oikawa blinks awake. He reaches out groggily for his bedfellow before remembering exactly what had happened last night, his arm retracts to his side and he groans into his pillow. A part of him wants to hide here, avoid life, and more importantly: Suga, for the rest of eternity; another part of him screams to uphold normalcy, to act like nothing happened and he isn’t bothered. While those two factions war within his head, a third, smaller, part longs to turn back the time and take back his outburst. But he can’t go back to yesterday no matter how much he wishes, he can only move forward and face today. 

Today he has no obligations, tomorrow there’s training, next week a game. It’s okay, none of that is  _ now. Right now  _ he can stay curled up in his bed ignoring the vibrations of incoming text messages. The two sides of him clash on, but that’s okay, he doesn’t need to pick yet. 

Eventually biology drags him out of his bed, and by then he might as well be productive. He cleans himself up for the day, gets dressed, and tosses the laundry in before meandering into the kitchen to make some sort of breakfast. There’s something soothing about cooking, something about not really having to think about anything other than what he’s doing for a while. Unfortunately, it’s only breakfast, which is half leftovers to begin with and his distraction ends just in time for a new message to light up his phone. 

Tooru opens his phone to find a handful of messages: a couple are from teammates about strategies and recordings of the opponent’s games, a couple others are about a planned party after the game. Is he up for that? No. Will he be? Probably not, but he’ll be expected to make an appearance. 

He continues on through messages from the past twelve hours or so, there’s a teasing comment from Makki, a reply from Iwa-chan saying he got home safe, and finally the one he’s been avoiding. 

**_Kou-chan:_ ** _ hey _

**_Kou-chan:_ ** _ I’m sorry about last night _

**_Kou-chan:_ ** _ we’re still friends right? Want to come over and catch a movie later? _

What was Suga sorry for?  _ He  _ didn’t freak out and cry and burst out an awkward confession.  _ He  _ didn’t have an emotional outburst and leave to take an early walk of shame. But now he, Oikawa, has seen the messages, he has to choose, avoid or act?

**_Me:_ ** _ hi! _

**_Me:_ ** _ don’t worry about it (>~<), I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable _(_^_)_ _

**_Me:_** _(/◕ヮ◕)/_ _a movie sounds great!_

**_Me:_ ** _ should I bring lunch/supper? _

Well. That’s a decision. One he’s already regretting with a groan over his food and a face in his hand. He prods at his leftovers, mixes them in with the freshly cooked parts of the meal while he eats. Each bite is slow and sullen, absently Tooru supposes he’s thankful he no longer has a roommate, there’s nobody to poke fun at his misery. 

The laundry finishes it’s cycle and he rises to put the wet load into the dryer. He dumps his bedding into the wash next and sets both machines to run. He imagines for a moment doing a different load of dirty laundry, a metaphorical one made of wasted emotion and discarded people-pleasing. The imaginary load washes away the regret, the anxieties, the misbegotten love, and leaves behind only fun and friendly affection, a bit of care, everything that should be in his heart now if it weren’t swollen and tender, beating slowly around the overflow of feeling. Unfortunately, such a cavalier attitude lies out of reach, his heart still aches for feeling. 

He drifts through eating the rest of his meal, drifts through washing the dishes, but it isn’t until he’s folding laundry that his phone goes off again. 

**_Kou-chan:_ ** _ is dinnertime okay with you? I was going to cook so you don’t need to worry about bringing anything _

**_Me:_ ** _ dinner is great Kou-chan, I’ll see you then! _

The clothes find themselves folded and tucked away. The sheets turn round and round, churning in soap and suds and then in heated air, not unlike the churn of Tooru’s guts as he frets. 

A refreshing smile reflecting light brighter and brighter until it becomes the flash of a camera. Cameras flash and shine off hard polished floors until the lights have blinded him. The white fog fades to reveal a night sky, twinkling softly. Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight… Starlight flares to sparkling silver ash that grows into a fidgeting figure saying  _ I’m sorry, I can’t love you like that.  _ The being crumbles like all the ash it ever was and spells out across the floor a long denied truth or perhaps a cruel falsehood:  _ You will never be enough. You will be alone always and then you will die. You with your love unasked for, you with your jealousy unchecked, you with your faults laid bare without move to fix them. You, you will never be enough like this.  _

The bed is redressed. 

A man in the shower but he isn’t in the shower, but he stands at the mirror unseeing and prodding at flesh and skin and hair and wondering what he can do, what he can change to become worthy. Energy burns in his veins but paralysis takes over, trapping him in place with a thudding heart and a mind whispering constant reminders of fucking up. 

His phone vibrates again, jarring, sudden, and Tooru comes to consciousness to find a flat scrubbed clean and himself changed and appropriately arranged to go out. The nerves are still in his guts, churning not unlike laundry, though they don’t seem to be washing clean like one may expect. It’s almost laughable, out he’ll go, laden with a mountain of his own dirty laundry he can’t manage after so long trying to help Koushi with his. 

Yanking himself up out of his own self-pity is a Herculean feat, but one he manages with a vested effort to curtail his spiral before it hits terminal velocity. He opens his phone. 

**_Me:_ ** _ Iwa-chan _

**_Me:_ ** _ sorry if you’re busy _

**_Me:_ ** _ I fucked uo and I’m freaking out  _

**_Me:_ ** _ I told Suga I love him _

**_Me:_ ** _ and we have dinner plans and I don’t know what to DO _

**_Iwa-chan is typing…_ **

**_Iwa-chan:_ ** _???  _

**_Iwa-chan:_ ** _ How is that a bad thing? _

**_Iwa-chan:_ ** _ also: finally.  _

**_Me:_ ** _ orz _

**_Me:_ ** _ bc he doesn’t like me back _

**_Me:_ ** _ and rude! Don’t ‘finally’ me, I had my reasons!! <`ヘ´> _

**_Iwa-chan:_ ** _ your having dinner right, why not talk about it with //him//?  _

**_Iwa-chan:_ ** _ I can’t help from here, but you’re going to be fine Oikawa _

**_Iwa-chan:_ ** _ and you can call me afterwards if you need to _

Flopping back onto clean sheets, Tooru groans. Stupid reasonable Iwa-chan giving stupid  _ reasonable  _ advice like a stupid reasonable person. Still, like a defibrillator stabilizing an erratic pulse, the conversation jolts him back to reasonableness. He texts his thanks, and a promise to call later regardless. A glance up to the top of the screen confirms the time as near parting and he’s still vibrating with nervous energy but it’s staying in stasis for now. He washes his face, runs a comb again through his hair, and spends the last few minutes practicing a nonchalant smile in the mirror. Suga would see right through him of course, but it always felt just a little bit better to pretend he had anything under control. The smile looks limp under the bright light, and his hands are fidgeting far too much, but time is up and there’s nowhere left to hide. 

The trip between his home and Suga’s is regrettably —or blessedly— short and Tooru finds himself knocking against the door, fingers lingering on the wood to tap away in pseudo-Morse. 

The door swings open to reveal Koushi, smiling, stunning Koushi who takes one look and ushers him indoors. “You can relax, I’m not upset with you if that’s what you’re worried about.” Tooru’s shoes and jacket finding their way to their usual designated places. 

“Do you need any help with supper?” he asks, hands gripping each other then the doorframe then his sleeve, the picture of hesitance. Suga merely shakes his head, assures him there’s nothing left to do but let the last of it cook down a few minutes longer. 

Which leaves them here, blinking at one another across an immutable chasm —also known as the kitchen— for an inordinate amount of time. Finally, the spell is broken by Koushi’s “we need to talk.” That phrase never means anything good does it? That’s a breakup phrase, but can they break up if they were never together to begin with? 

“We need to talk about where we go from here, which aspects of our friendship we keep, which we rework, and which we drop entirely,” recites Suga in a tone that speaks of long rehearsal. “Sex is off the table, you said yesterday, is there anything else that would be uncomfortable for you?”

“What about  _ you?  _ I don’t want to make  _ you  _ uncomfortable either.”

Truly, a pair of well meaning idiots they are. Unfortunately, good intentions do not further a conversation. The fear of being  _ too much  _ hovers over Tooru’s head, because he’s always been a little too high maintenance hasn’t he? A little too pushy, a little too annoying, a little too emotional. Suga having put up with him this long is already the exception rather than the norm, his feelings were already verging on destructive, how much more could he possibly jeopardize their friendship?

“You’re my  _ friend, _ Tooru,” Suga exclaims, “before anything else. I’m comfortable with you no matter what!”

“Then let’s stay the same, who says we need to change? I want as much as possible to stay the same. Like dumb texts over lunch, or movie nights like this, or any of the other million little things we do together besides sex. I want to keep being your  _ friend,  _ if that’s still okay with you.”

A smile. A beat of silence. A mutual realization that they’ve spoken in circles around each other. A shared laugh. Plating and sitting and eating in wonted peace and ease. They rinse the dishes together and find themselves sprawled against each other on the sofa with a cheesy B-list sci-fi flick playing before them. There’s a casual intimacy to this, limbs draped over one another, a head weighing heavy on his shoulder, an intimacy that at once means nothing and means  _ everything.  _

Because ‘friends’ is an excellent thing to be, there’s still understanding and trust and it’s just as, if not more, precious as romance. The vestiges of tension ease from Oikawa’s limbs, allowing Suga to settle more comfortably against him. The noise in his head settles, spirals out to nothing because what had there been to worry about? Stupid, irrational, really how could he have so little faith in the people he’s chosen to surround himself with? So little faith in his own self? What happened to  _ fine with himself?  _ Perhaps it wafted in and out like the scent of fresh laundry on the wind. But laundry can be gathered, and so too can he. 

It really is nice to know you, he thinks but whether he means himself or Suga, even he couldn’t be sure. 


	6. Life of the Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A party, a phone call, and finally a discussion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look I made myself very sad with this one’s dialogue, particularly the end so uhhh heads up for Suga’s not quite healthy coping mechanisms? Is that the right term? I dunno, it’s 1 am, I’m sad and tired, I’ll proofread properly in the morning.  
> Also there’s a [playlist!](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiUUn9YIkvrpHfCPzH98sLl5R6cj1pNnc) With both the names songs and the interludes that influenced but didn’t get named in the fic!

A week passes relatively quickly, especially with one source of anxiety taken care of and a larger looming one to fixate on day and night. The week passes in late-running practices and obsessive rewatching of taped games, it passes in rushed texts and the occasional phone call with friends, though no real face-to-face contact. 

The game itself stretches eternally, each second guided by laser focus and finely tuned skills and teamwork. It’s a rush of adrenaline, the highs of elation at every point gained, and the lows of frustration with every point against them. In the end, the game stretches to a hard won victory in the fifth set followed by a breathless celebration, which is to say, despite the lingering exhaustion of a well played match the planned afterparty went as expected, teeming with players, friends, and copious amounts of alcohol. 

By the wee hours of the morning, most have departed the party scene, and those remaining are either passed out or on their way towards that end. Oikawa sits by one of the wide windows overlooking the city nursing a can long warmed by his hands. Were he to note the time he’d see it flash four, but he doesn’t bother, and time fades to hazy non-existence. 

Instead, he gazes around him at the people sleeping in sofas or in floors, or nursing their own drinks and conversations. He doesn’t know half of them, but that isn’t unusual, what is unusual is how alone he feels in that now. As a starting player, the attendants of these parties usually crowd around him and his fellows, which is fine usually, he’s comfortable with eyes on him, with attention; at least if they were focusing on him he could show them what he wants to be seen as. However, once the adrenaline high faded, the desire to perform faded too, leaving him unusually pensive and melancholic over his drink. The partygoers still orbited by him, but it felt distant, separated. Instead he thinks of all the choices that lead him here, the person he’s become, and who he might’ve been if he had changed even one of those choices.

Where would he be if he hadn’t picked up volleyball at all? Where would he be if he had gone to Shiratorizawa? Where would he be if he hadn’t gone pro? Where would he be without all the friendships he’s cultivated and held onto over the years?

Nothing good comes of alcohol and mobile phones, this he knows, but that does not stop one Oikawa Tooru from pressing a number from his recent contacts list. 

The phone rings. 

Once. 

Twice. 

Three, four, five.

On the sixth ring a groggy voice answers: “‘ello?”

“Kou-chan, where do you think you’d be if you weren’t a teacher?”

A pause weighs heavy over the line, long enough for mild concern that Suga fell asleep to set in. “...Tooru it’s four in the morning.”

“Yes. But where would you be?”

“I don’t know.” Yawn. “Where would you be if you didn’t play anymore?”

“Dunno, somewhere. Hopefully still friends with Iwa-chan, hopefully still friends with you.

“I’ve been thinking,” Oikawa continues, “about who I’d be if I did something different. Who I could be if I walked away from this. I  _ like _ this, the game and the cameras and crowds, all of it, but at the same time I think I could like something smaller, more private.”

Again a pause, still sleep heavy but more thoughtful. 

“I think you’d always be you, no matter what you did or where you went. You’d still be a little too loud and too eager to please, but you’d also still be just as diligent if it was anything else you were working at. You’d be just as good a friend.”

“Maybe I’d be a better friend. A little less of a mess, maybe, someone you could lean on more.”

“Yeah, well, in another life maybe I’d let myself love you.” The words hang heavy, taking a few precious moments to truly register. 

“Let? Koushi?”

The line stays silent, evident of Suga having fallen back asleep. With a tap of the screen the call drops and with it any half baked ideas to call up other friends with similar inquiries about their life choices. For now he puts the thought aside, a part of him quietly glad that he  _ had  _ made the decisions he had leading up to this moment before focusing on more practical matters, re: getting home safely at four in the morning. He’s stayed the night at plenty of parties and get togethers over the years, but right now he needs his own space to unwind and process both the newest revelation and fluctuating emotional highs and lows of the past week. On the plus side, it’s relatively simple to get a taxi even this late (early?) and a brief, silent ride later deposits him safely at his door. A glass of water is all he pauses for before collapsing into bed. 

The following day opens with sunlight streaming through the cracks in between the curtains, and a headache that the water had done little to curtail. Still, not the most painful hangover he’s ever had, and considering the previous night stands firm in his memory, he stands in pretty good shape. Still, a certain drunken phone call hangs heavy in his mind, especially painful as he’s successfully avoided Suga for a week now under the guise of work. Well, it really had been work keeping him occupied so maybe the phrase isn’t quite right. What was he thinking about again? Right, phone call, that damning word  _ let.  _

Which means what exactly?  _ Let myself love you,  _ the connotation there would be that Suga was  _ also _ hiding feelings wouldn’t it? But why if they were mutual? Was it a slip of the tongue? Some other meaning? How likely is it that he was reading far too much into the word? Or projecting onto it? Too high most likely. He could ask, but what if it’s the straw that breaks them? And either way the answer would probably hurt or be uncomfortable. 

So no. He won’t ask. He’ll ignore the word, the question, his feelings, Suga, anything and everything until something settles inside him. 

Oikawa opens his phone, noting the time as past eleven, edging closer to eleven thirty. There’s missed messages as well: someone looking for missing shoes from last night, though the party wasn’t at his flat so why would he have them? There’s a few friendly messages along the line of “good game” or “you played well!” from various friends and acquaintances as well, he responds to them all with thanks in turn. There’s similar texts from closer friends too, like Iwa-chan, Mattsun, Suga, Makki, people he should put a bit more effort into texting but can’t muster the energy now. He sets his phone aside and goes about making breakfast, though it’s practically lunch by now, either way ochazuke is filling and usually a decent hangover cure. He puts the kettle on while he gets out the leftover rice and what toppings there are in the fridge. He really needs to do his grocery shopping today. 

The kettle whistles and he puts the tea to steep, then sets the rice to warm in the microwave. Pickled plums and crunched up snack nori, a stalk of green onion, and then tea poured on top: comfort food, simple and stable. 

Two messages arrive nearly simultaneously while he eats, both asking if he wants to hang out later, one from Makki and one from Koushi. It’s a bit easier to think about socializing and texting now that there’s food in his system. On the one hand he really should do his Grown Up Chores™ like groceries and cleaning the bath, but on the other hand  _ friends.  _ Though on a smaller, secondary hand to the friend hand, there’s still the fact he’s avoiding one of those friends, so maybe he’ll see what Makki’s thinking and if he can do it later in the day, after chores, he’ll do that. Yeah, that’s a plan. He texts back accordingly and returns to his meal. 

He’s washing up his dishes when he gets a reply from Makki, stating that his plans had been a casual hangout in the evening, like dinner and gossip and video games, which gives him ample time. He answers that he’ll be there, and then switches over to Suga’s text box to say he already has plans. 

With that the weekend passes with productive energy around his flat, energetic conversations with friends, and continued avoidance of feelings. The weekend sprawls into the following week, back at the grind but with a lightheartedness borne of victory. 

The weekend rolls around again, and with it: confrontation. 

Oikawa comes home from practice boneless and pleasantly sore, the contented peace of a smooth practice and a good work out sitting comfortably on his shoulders and in his bones. That is, until he spots the figure leaning against his door. Now logically he may have anticipated this would happen sooner or later, after all at this point he’d gone from dancing away from face to face meetings to dropping texts as well (though how much good did that really do his poor swollen heart if it’s constricting this badly now?) however while he  _ may have  _ he _ hadn’t.  _

“Kou-chan? What’re you doing here?”

Suga holds up a bag loaded with what appeared to be Tupperware. “I brought dinner, can I come in?” 

There’s a sort of jarred feeling floating over Tooru, not exactly upset or nervous, but not really the resignation of being caught in any sort of lie, more like missing the top step than anything else. He opens the door and lets them both in. 

Shoes off and slippers on, they slip into the kitchen. Bag down. Containers out. Steam hides the contents from outside view but it’s warm and weighted and much better than the lazy post practice meal he had been planning to throw together. At the bottom of the bag sits a lone empty container: the little blue one he had packed rice balls into what felt like an eon ago. He hadn’t noticed it still missing. 

“You didn’t have to do all this,” Tooru says across the counter while he grabs plates and bowls, “this is kind of a lot.”

Suga hums, noncommittal, evasive almost on the shift of his eyes away. “Yeah well, consider it payback and interest for all the times you made food for me over the years.” They serve the food out in silence. Only then, in the quiet of the kitchen in dimmed lighting and late hours, over still steaming dishes do they confront the elephant. 

“You’ve been avoiding me.” It isn’t a question. Of course it isn’t. “If you needed a break from being around me, you could’ve just said so. I would’ve understood.”

“That isn’t—” Well, yes that sort of is what he, Tooru, needed, but that’s rude. And there’s more to it than that. “I didn’t mean for it to get like this, I was just busy at first, really.”

“And then?”

“Then it was easier to keep avoiding you than admit I was. What did you mean when you said  _ let?” _

The expression that follows is pure befuddlement as Suga backtracks through their conversation to find the word. Oikawa takes pity on him. “What did you mean that night I called you after my game and you said in another life you’d let yourself love me?”

Suga’s face shifts from furrowed in confusion to relaxing into agape surprise to shielded and closed off in the span of seconds. His eyes go blank and cold in a terrifying manner, empty, like he’s not there at all.

_ No. Hiding is what got them into this mess to begin with.  _

“I’m asking you this just this one time and then I’ll never bring it up again,” Tooru begins, “but I need to know. What did you mean? What does  _ let _ mean? Were you lying when you said you couldn’t feel that way for me before?”

Silence. Heavy. Stilted. Silence. 

“...a place can’t love anything, anyone.” Suga stares down at his plate, fingers plucking at his sleeves while he speaks in dead monotone. Great, an answer, but what the hell does that  _ mean?  _ Oikawa asks as much. 

“It means exactly what it sounds like. A place can’t love anything or feel anything at all. It’s easier to be a place, nothing can hurt you if you aren’t a person.

“Everyone needs a place, for shelter, or to shoot from, and it’s nice being needed in some way.”

“Koushi, you can be needed and still be a person. You don’t need to be a place to be safe.”

Koushi shakes his head, but he doesn’t speak again. Instead he digs into his food and doesn’t look up until it’s gone. Tooru takes the time to eat his own serving, and contemplate the things he’d just been told. 

How long had Koushi been a ‘place’? What started this, who started this? Was it better to accept and drop or to try to help? Here again all this dirty laundry and still he can’t reach out and take it from Suga’s arms, but by confession he’s been given a basket now what will he do with it? 

Suga piles his dishes neatly, then folds his hands just as neatly in his lap. His eyes remain downcast but he speaks, a terribly vulnerable sound unlike his usual sass and smiles. “I was scared. When you said you loved me, I mean. ...love didn’t end well last time, and I know it’s different, I know  _ you  _ are different. But it’s hard, I’ve been just a place for years, just letting anyone take what they want from me without any care about what I wanted or what I thought. It’s easier that way, it’s easy being  _ easy.  _

“Most of the time it’s just sex, you know, like all those tallies just wanted something warm at night. It’s easier just to go with whatever they needed or wanted than to be difficult. Even you. It’s easier to be a place for you too, somewhere to relax and get out of your head for once—”

A wave of nausea washes over Tooru at that. 

“But it was also  _ different! _ You actually  _ cared  _ about me and what I needed,  _ wanted, _ and I didn’t know what to do with that. I was fine with it being just casual, with never having to deal with all,” he waves vaguely,  _ “this!  _ But then you had to go and say you loved me and I can’t let myself love you back. I can’t. I don’t think I could handle it when everything falls apart.”

Okay. Wow. That’s… a lot. 

Tooru reaches out, places a careful hand a top Koushi’s. “Kou-chan,” he tries, “you don’t need to be anything right now, nor am I going to ask you to make a decision about your feelings or mine, but I think we’ve got this wrong. I’m not going to say I get it, not fully, because I don’t, but aren’t some aspects between us similar? You didn’t want to be difficult and I didn’t want to be too much, and neither one is helping us. So let’s start over, if you want to try, as people, both of us, not as places or stand-ins or whatever else we think of ourselves as. Do you think that could be something you’d want too?”

A pause, thoughtful and weighty. 

A nod. And a solemn whisper of four simple monosyllables:  _ I want to try.  _

For the first time in the two years of  _ them,  _ there’s hope for that laundry getting cleaned after all. 


	7. Ground Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You don’t need to be afraid of drifting Kou-chan, I’ll never let you float away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuses for why this took so long, I just couldn’t focus, terribly sorry !!  
> But on the plus side I did start the side story that takes place between last chapter and this one so that’s something? The working title of that is “Why So” please look out for that!

_ Last week _

**_Me:_ ** _ Ground Control to Major Kou-chan, what’s it like up there today? _

**_Kou-chan:_ ** _ all clear today!! _

_ Four days ago _

**_Me:_ ** _ Kou-chan this is Ground Control, how’re we doing today? _

**_Kou-chan:_ ** _ a little cloudy (｡•́︿•̀｡) _

**_Me:_ ** _ do you want me to come over? (｡•́︿•̀｡) _

**_Me:_ ** _ I can get dinner from that place you like on my way _

**_Kou-chan:_ ** _ could you? That would be nice thank you <3 _

_ Today _

**_Kou-chan:_ ** _ Ground Control we’re drifting today, might fall out of contact for a bit _

**_Me:_ ** _ do you want me there? I can be there in like, half an hour _

**_Kou-chan:_ ** _ you have practice _

**_Kou-chan:_ ** _ I’ll be okay _

**_Me:_ ** _ yeah, but you’re more important than a practice _

**_Me:_ ** _ I’ll see you soon _

The most difficult part about actually talking about their issues is talking about their issues. Especially given both their track records of squashing said feelings until they pass into explosion territory, it’s taken months to reach the point of consistent communication. Silly little code words help, like the specific phrasing of “Ground Control to Major Kou” and its variants, used to ask about status as a person instead of a place without the demand of calling it out directly. The little things help, but there’s always new pitfalls to fall into, like what does  _ drifting  _ mean? A new one, but not particularly reassuring. 

Oikawa skives out of practice early, which should be some kind of problem but it isn’t, he’s always there early anyway, and usually stays late, and really it seemed the coaches were relieved they wouldn’t have to chase him out at the end. True to his word, he arrives at a familiar doorway 27 minutes later, setting his key into the lock and turning it gently. The key itself is really a formality, a gesture of faith more than anything, he’s known where the spare is for years after all, but it’s nice to have, nice to have some tangible show of the progress they’ve made to truly trusting one another. 

The lock tumbles and the door gives way beneath his hands. “Kou-chan?” he asks the empty entryway, “are you alright?” Suga comes into sight smiling, not that that means anything per se, they’ve both a knack for smiling through nearly anything. It’s telling enough though when Suga embraces him immediately, silently, hiding his face in the crook of a neck and Tooru holds him in turn. 

The tight arms around his waist contrast the softly puffed words against the side of his throat: “I would’ve been fine, you didn’t need to skip out early for me.”

“Yeah, maybe, but I’m here so why don’t you tell me all about it?”

Suga’s shoulders shrug as well as they can with his arms still tight, “there’s not much to tell, some days are just… like this. Just sort of disconnected? Just floating away from everything, and it’s really the same old thing as before how I told you, about being a place? It’s that, just the actual… drift feeling?” 

Honestly, the explanation makes only a few modicums of sense, but those months of learning to communicate? They were also spent learning how to read each other without the hiding, and thus the explanation serves well enough. That and well, observance and figuring others out had always been strong points for both of them hasn’t it? 

“Do you want to stop drifting? Do you want to land or do you want a tether?” The question sounds nonsensical even to his own ears, but trial and error has proven that keeping to same or similar language when either of them are having a crisis greatly improves the chances of getting a functional answer. Or at least an answer that one could derive a functional answer from. 

“...a tether, I guess? This is good, this helps, having someone here, having  _ you _ here.”

“Do you want to sit down then? We can put something on Netflix and I’ll stay as long as you’d like.”

Suga hums as he pulls away, enough to see a smaller —but more genuine— smile edging onto his face. “We could yeah, but it always takes us an hour just to decide what to watch.” That doesn’t stop them from heading in that direction or pulling up Netflix or pulling up their “watch later” list to quibble through. Truthfully, their record for Longest Time Wasted Deciding What to Watch on Netflix is two hours, which might leave them time for one movie before they should think about the allure of sleep, but more importantly that back and forth over what to see is grounding, it’s proof of another person sharing your space and wanting to be there even if it’s to argue about shitty B-list movies. It’s a tether, and they both know it, without having to address it directly. 

In the end, they settle on some cheesy b-list horror movie that winds up being so bad it’s just plain funny, of course then they found afterwards it was meant to be a comedy and really that just cheapened the experience. Still, it had been a fun watch, and it had given Koushi a chance to relax and tease at Tooru for being a  _ little  _ jumpy, as well as let Tooru relax because if it was a truly bad day like some of the ones he’s seen in the past few months, Suga wouldn’t be laughing like this. So it’s nice really, it’s more than enough to be comfortable.

Tangled together on the sofa, they put on a cooking show they started last week and leave it on as background noise and rest comfortably against one another. “Do you wanna stay over?” Koushi mumbles in keeping with the quiet peace, “or do you have something in the morning?”

Tooru cards a hand through ash-blond hair, enjoying both the smooth softness against his fingers and the way Suga leans into his touch. “I can stay, if I’m not bothering you.”

“I wouldn’t ask if you were bothering me, Tooru.” 

Right, it wouldn’t make sense to ask if it was trouble would it? And there’s softness to that, beautiful and hard earned on both their parts, and so so cherished. 

“I’ll stay.” Whispered like a prayer, soft and careful, weighted with far more than the surface of two little words, the answer settles warm around them. With the low murmur of the telly in the background, and a solid body against which to orient oneself, it’s not long before they slip away to sleep, completely at peace. 

Sunlight sifts through partially parted blinds in the early morning, setting dust to twinkling swirling fairy powder and lighting the room in gentle yellows and orange. When I say this it should be a peaceful waking. Instead:

An alarm blares sci-fi alien noises that wouldn’t be out of place in a ’60s thriller film, breaking any sense of peace from wherever Oikawa’s phone has gone in the night. Blearily, limbs flail and smack one another until finally someone finds the phone fallen on the floor and shuts off the alarm. The next minute consists primarily of attempting to untangle and reorient themselves back into a comfortable position, once that is accomplished, Koushi rubs an eye, yawns, and asks, “where did you find an alarm like that?” And then as an afterthought, “also, do you have to get going?”

“Hmmm no, not yet,” Tooru replies after a stretch, “but I didn’t want to be rushing out on you when I do.” He flicks off a secondary/back up alarm. “And I got it from iTunes, it was the ninth top result for ‘alien alarm’.” Somehow that answer only gets him an even more dubious look than the initial alarm. However, rolling eyes does little to phase him and Oikawa lays a lazy peck against Suga’s upper cheek, near his beauty mark, which of course only causes  _ more  _ eye rolling and gets him a playful shove on complaint of morning breath. The complaint has little bearing considering right after Suga voices it,he presses an equally soft kiss to the corner of Oikawa’s mouth and stands. Suga stretches with a little pop of his shoulders, the light dances off his movements, bathing him in soft yellows and a lingering layer of “settled,” it’s a good look on him, though truly, most looks are. 

“How’s the weather up there, Major?” Oikawa sits up, head tilted back to look at Suga, tone joking but eyes serious. 

Suga smiles down at him, warm and bright as the sun peeking through the blinds, he beams even brighter as Tooru pulls him closer. He drops a hand to brunet hair, combing through some of the sleep mussed tangles gently, “mm sunny up here, perfect weather for landing, Ground Control.”

Blink. “You’re sure?”

A nod, more gentle fingers in hair. “Yeah, I’m sure. But you know, drifting wasn’t so scary yesterday, with someone around. It was almost peaceful for once, knowing there was someone there to be a sort of anchor.” His hand slides from hair to neck to shoulder, and with it his body lowers as well until he seats himself in Oikawa’s lap with both arms around him in an embrace. He still sits taller, and at this closeness Oikawa continues to look up at him, hands warm and heavy against the shorter’s lower back.

The brunet laughs, a short, warm little chuckle, “Yeah? Good then, I’ll be here whenever you need me. You don’t need to be afraid of drifting Kou-chan, I’ll never let you float away.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay okay, we’ve timeskipped a wee so here’s some things that changed  
> 1) OiSuga do NOT live together yet but  
> 2) they do have a joint Netflix account, they take turns paying the subscription fee  
> 3) a relationship is not going to fix trauma but having support can help, especially as Suga’s trauma is relationship based having open communication and stable support in place with someone he already trusts is probably helping this newborn relationship along 
> 
> I think that’s it? Let me know what you think of this little fic, I love to hear from you all!


	8. Afterglow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I found you, I’ll always find you, whenever you want to be found, I’ll be there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuses, I’m not even particularly busy, just kind of fizzling after these months of being at home I guess. This chapter is short, but it is the last before the epilogue. I hope you enjoy.

“You should move in with me.” 

Said randomly on a quiet evening, the statement shocks Oikawa into choking on his noodles. Unperturbed by this sputtered interruption, Suga presses onward: “or I could move in with you, either way. I think it would be good.” He pauses, waiting patiently for Oikawa to recover, the only sound in the kitchen becomes the softly playing radio and a repetitious cough. 

“You know,” Suga sets his chin in his hands. “You really shouldn’t be this shocked, we’ve been dating for a year now, officially. You should’ve been expecting this conversation to come up sooner or later.”

The coughing subsides, Oikawa settles himself back into a degree of composure. The radio plays a steady beat at its low volume, pulsing, though that isn’t the radio is it? It’s his own pulse thrumming through his flushed ears. His face is warm as he wipes soup off his chin, “I was! Just, not like this, I figured there’d be some sort of lead in. I’m glad you asked though, I’ve been thinking about that a lot, but I didn’t want to pressure you, you know? I figured you  _ like  _ having your own space and time alone, I didn’t think I should bring up anything that would change what we have until you were ready.” 

Suga levels a shrewd smile at him, familiar in its visible analysis and scrutiny. “Are you sure it was entirely for my benefit? It’s alright if  _ you _ aren’t ready for that, it was just a suggestion.” He takes a long sip of his water glass, the picture of nonchalance unless one knew the tells to look for. However his boyfriend  _ did _ know those tells, the little twitch in his pinkie against his glass, the scratch of his opposite thumb along his fingers, the way his eyes shift to maintain the shroud of casualness. All the little things point to just as much nervousness as Oikawa had felt regarding the matter, and in knowing that, that they shared that same concern, the pulsing beat dwindles to silence, and the nerves float away like butterflies. 

Oikawa links their pinkies. “I'd like that a lot, Kou-chan, we’ll figure out what works best for us and go from there.” 

The moving debate raged on for weeks, marked by countless pros and cons lists and justifications for one place or the other until finally the thought came to mind that it may be easier to find somewhere new, together, rather than trying to fit another life amidst an established one. In the end, they find a flat nearly dead centre between their previous homes, larger than the one-man flats they’re accustomed to, but empty, ready to be filled by two hearts in tandem. 

Their friends gather to help with the move —or what’s left of it— which inevitably devolves into a joyous housewarming party of sorts migrating from the flat out onto the streets. At this time, with the late vendors open in droves, it takes mere minutes for their group to find a place for drinks and ramen beneath the blue streetlights and neon storefronts. It’s messy, loud, and just as raucous as that pub crawl three years ago that changed everything. 

Broth dribbles down Daichi’s chin as Suga smacks his back with a  _ thanks,  _ Asahi wisely avoids this fate by sitting across the table from his friends. An arm slings itself around Oikawa’s shoulders and pulls him against his best friend, the internal warmth within him manifested with the solid action. “I’m happy for you, Tooru, it took you years but the two of you worked out.” He raises a glass, Tooru clinks his own against it. A wordless thanks passes in the returned one-armed embrace. 

Another glass lifts into the air. “To getting shit together,” Hanamaki toasts, eliciting a chorus of laughter and whoops, and finally a round of answering toasts. The bright yellow lights illuminate the smiles all around their table. Oikawa takes in each in turn, the ease with which they all rub elbows and grin, the way warm lighting feels like home, the way his eyes inevitably find Suga’s and he knows that despite the time it took them, this is exactly where they’re meant to be. nowhere else could match this level of  _ correct _ than this small, hole in the wall shop, surrounded by soup-stained friends, familiarity, and the solid reassurances of both loving and being loved. 

In time they spill out into the streets, under neon advertisements and blue streetlights, to walk and talk, and spend the dwindling hours of the day together. Oikawa looks to Suga, once more at his side and lit beautifully in the vibrant reds and blues and purples of the night. He takes his hand, delighting in the smile that turns his way. Oikawa swings their hands, swings them around into fumbling dance steps, all while humming a dizzy, dreamy, tuneless beat. 

Koushi laughs. “What are we doing? There’s no music.” He makes no move to pull away, in fact he swings around just as exuberantly despite the bemused expressions of their friends and the less tolerant looks of random passersby. There’s peace around him, a contented air relaxed and unpretending, firmly in opposition to last year’s put upon nonchalance. 

Oikawa laughs in return, “we don’t need any, I just need you.” Their friends move on past them, amused or embarrassed at the public antics, but still there’s no rush, no sense of urgency. Where would they need to be? There’s nowhere to go, not when they’ve each other, when the home they share will be there waiting for them whenever they find their way. Oikawa laughs, caught up in the elation of it all, heady and hazy as an afterglow, but better, somehow, than any before. 

One last swing brings them close together again, inches apart. Oikawa scarcely opens his mouth before Suga whispers three monosyllables against his lips. 

_ I love you. _

The sentiment returns in on itself in the press of lips and a whispered promise passed from the mouth of one lover to the next. “I found you, I’ll always find you, whenever you want to be found, I’ll be there,” Tooru vows. 

“As I’ll find you, as long as you’ll have me.”

They part and join their friends once more, drifting unnoticed by the world under neon lights and a happiness built over years, large enough to carry them long past the night. 


	9. Marbles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue, in parts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy fuck it’s done. School took more out of me than I anticipated sorry but it’s here now! Featuring the return of the mediocre gay smut written by a clueless lesbian! And also feelings! Enjoy?

Sugawara Koushi stumbles out of the elevator of his apartment building after a generally long day at work. Though the hours were same as always, today they seemed to drag by with every piercing scream of childish voices. The headache he’s been nursing since lunchtime throbs gently as he turns the last corner and sets his key in the door. The smell of paint hits his nose as he crosses the threshold, he sets aside his shoes and steps quietly inwards. 

Lime green meets his eyes in the kitchen in the forms of small curving leaves and clumsy curlicue vines looping the cabinets. Here and there he spots the pops of colour representing tiny flowers and stenciled birds, it’s nice in an unexpected way. Suga steps further in, around the counter until he spots Oikawa seated on the floor, painting curlicues into a lower cabinet door, concentration pinching his features. Suga waits until he dips the brush down into the paint tray to speak up with a greeting, rightfully so as Oikawa jumps a bit when spoken to, though his smile is quick to grow across his face. 

“Kou-chan! Welcome home, I didn’t hear you come in.” He sets his paint down and stands, “how was your day?”

Suga sets his bag upon the countertop, then leans up on tiptoe to press lips above a smattering of green faux-freckles on Oikawa’s cheek. “Long, but nice, the kids were good today. What’s all this you’re doing?”

A shrug. “I thought it’d be nice, we haven’t really made this place our own yet, and this’ll be easy enough to paint over if we move out. Do you like it? I wanted to have it finished for when you got home…”

Suga pulls away, turning to seriously ponder the state of their cabinetry. As stated, it would be simple enough to paint over if they needed too, or if they grew bored of the design, though that detail had little bearing at present. The curling vines stretch imperfectly from door to door, dotted with colour and leaves in a way slightly reminiscent of the murals at work, they’re rather pleasant to look at. More than that, the care and intent behind the swirls burns warm in his chest. 

“I love it. It’s beautiful, Tooru, thank you. Can I help you finish?”

Tooru embraces him, hands carefully within an old towel in case of paint and chin settling on Koushi’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Major, go ahead and get cleaned up, I’ll be done this soon.”

Koushi turns with a squeeze to the arms around him and a peck to the cheek before heading deeper into the apartment to change and shower. Their apartment smells of paint for days, but the lime green becomes a comforting persistent presence. 

-X-

Koushi bounces through the front door, eager for the start of the long weekend and quality time with his boyfriend. He calls a greeting as he enters, casual as he sets his keys in the bowl by the door and his bag on the counter. A pot simmers on the stove and the rice cooker counts down minutes, signifying Tooru must be home despite his lack of an answer. “Tooru? I’m home,” he calls again, waiting briefly until a soft answer comes, pulling him towards their bathroom. 

He opens the door and steps through the threshold to spot Oikawa immediately in front of him, poking and prodding and tussling dejectedly at his face and hair before the mirror. Gel crusts uncharacteristically crudely on select tufts of brown hair, rendering the soft strands solid and stiff, and pink splotches bloom beneath fingers angry and patchy. His sweater, soft and purple and old, rumples on his form, stretched at the shoulders where it no longer fits. “Tooru?” Suga asks as he approaches, calm and careful, “is something wrong? Are you alright?”

Tooru catches his eye in the mirror, his hands drop to his sides. A breath. A pause. Then: he turns, by degrees, toward Koushi and asks in lieu of an answer: “Kou-chan, do you still think I’m sexy?”

“You know I do,” the shorter replies, leaning against the doorframe. “What’s brought this on?” He watches as Tooru turns mournfully back to the mirror, his fingers snagging in gel-hardened hair. Clouding the air between them, tension rises: fretful on Oikawa’s part, and rather more concerned on Sugawara’s. 

One last tug pulls calloused fingers from the depths of a hairy labyrinth. One last slow drag of hands over face marks pink in slow lines. One last deep breath has Tooru turn to face his boyfriend and sheepishly answer. “My sweater’s too small. It’s so stupid, I know it is. But we’ve both got some decent time off together for the first time in a while and I wanted it to be  _ nice.  _ A nice dinner ready, and I wanted to  _ look _ nice for you, but the stupid  _ sweater,  _ and everything else!  _ Why is it so much work to be pretty?” _ He wobbles with the force of his cry, hands fisted in frustration, but he leans easily into Suga once embraced. 

“You’re already pretty, Tooru, and this sort of thing doesn’t usually bother you like this either. How about we get this off,” he plucks at the cuff of the sweater, “scoop out dinner and you can tell me what’s bothering you behind all this.” 

Tooru sniffs, nods, and pulls away to follow through. With some difficulty, somewhat mitigated by their joint efforts, the sweater comes off with an official prognosis of being cast out from the closet (though whether it may take up residence in Suga’s closet or not is a different animal entirely). Through lesser efforts and some water, they remove the crusts from hair and set everything to rights. The rice cooker hums a cheery little notice of its completion as they step out, and the pot on the stove bubbles happily, thankfully at low enough temperature that burns and bubbling over are of minimal concern. They serve out their meal, rice and tofu and previously made and set aside side dishes. It’s nice, really nice, and notably spicy, more in line with Koushi’s tastes than Tooru’s. Thanks and praise meet the air, the tension in which, while present, eases steadily. They eat and it isn’t until they’re nearly done that Tooru speaks up: “I wanted to ask you something, but I wanted to do it  _ right.  _ Tonight… isn’t right anymore, if you don’t mind I’ll hold onto my question a little longer.”

A foot nudges at his ankle gently, “I don’t mind, though promise me you’ll try not to stress yourself out too much about it? Things don’t need to be perfect to be good, _we_ don’t need to be perfect to be good.” Suga rises with a squeeze of a hand and a kiss to the temple, before making quick work of setting away leftovers and tidying up. Tooru eats slower, by the time he finishes the kitchen is cleaned up and Suga takes the dishes from him; sets them into the sink. “Did you mean it earlier?” Suga asks, hands reaching out for contact. 

“Did I mean what?”

“When you said you didn’t feel pretty, when you asked if I think you’re sexy. Did you mean that?”

Oikawa looks away, eyes darting at odds with the way his body relaxes and welcomes the other into his space. “A little? I just… I- I want to be enough as I am. Not too much, not too little, just  _ enough.”  _

“Tooru…”

“Most of the time I’m fine! It’s all fine! Just… today, I was worrying a lot about nothing.It’s just… a lot of old laundry I forgot about.”

Suga takes his hands, grazes his lips over knuckles and lifts his gaze directly into brown eyes. “It isn’t nothing, not if it’s bothering you. You  _ are  _ enough, just as you are, I promise. And old or not, we help each other with our laundry, right?” Lifting his arms, he embraces the brunet, a beat follows before Oikawa reciprocates, head falling against his shoulder with a faint nod. They remain for a long moment, basking in the familiarity and comforting warmth of the embrace, eventually Suga pulls back, a familiar scheming look smeared across his face, "You know," he begins enunciating with heavy pauses, "I could show you  **exactly** how  _ pretty _ I think you are."

Grinning now, ears and cheekbones pink, Oikawa mocks wide-eyed innocence: "why Koushi, is that a proposition?"

In lieu of an answer, or perhaps as an alternative to one, lips and hot breath meet his throat, marking invisible trails from ear to clavicle and back. A gentle pressure on his shoulders guides them away from the half-cleaned kitchen and towards their shared bedroom. Tooru keeps an eye behind them as they walk, though his fingers roam through grown out tresses of silver hair, or against a hip, waist, rucking up a tucked in tee-shirt.

In a short moment they fall into their room, littered in knickknacks and assorted articles of clothing, and onto their bed. A bed blissfully lacking tally marks or lonely empty spaces, their first joint purchase for the apartment, something that really shouldn't cause as many mushy feelings as it does. Koushi finally relents from his attentions and turns instead to peeling their shirts off. Half stripped, Tooru reaches for the fastenings of their jeans, only to be swatted off, and for his hands to be taken and pressed gently back into the mattress.

Koushi leans over him, breath ghosting against the shell of his ear with every sultry word, "let me  _ show you." _ A shiver courses through the other, pulling an unseen smile to Koushi's face. His mouth returns to the pulse point below the ear, then up to the hinge of the jaw, and along until their lips meet. "You're pretty here," comes a whispered assurance. A second and third kiss fall softly against warm cheeks, again with the same whisper. Koushi watches as Tooru's eyes shut, an embarrassed whine makes its way past his teeth. Carefully, butterfly kisses fall on fluttering eyelids, marked again with a whisper of  _ pretty. _ The same treatment befalls hair and chin and nose, by which point Tooru burns pink and flushed and  _ bright. _ His lower lip catches stunningly between his teeth, his chest rising with every stuttered breath. Koushi releases his hands as he slides down to lavish the same attention to shoulder, chest, stomach, arms, hands. He presses softly to each finger individually, then to each palm, catching Tooru's appraising gaze. He shifts again to place a palm flat above the brunet's heart, "and here, here you're  _ beautiful."  _

He gasps then, as Tooru pulls him up and into a blisteringly intense kiss, his hand stays rooted and the other finds purchase cupping Tooru's face. Larger hands find themselves against the back of his neck pulling him in, and on his ass, pressing them together from tip to toe. Despite the contraining barriers of two layers of denim, the pressure draws both attention lower and a groan from them both.

Koushi glides his fingers smoothly down between them, palming his boyfriend's cock, laughing against his lips when Tooru bucks up against his hand. Tooru nips his lip in response, not that that lasts long when Suga slides a hand under this waistband. He sits up quickly, lips ghosting over Suga's mole while his hands flick open the buttons of their jeans.

That same sinful smirk reappears on Suga's face as he pulls away, just enough to slide down further, pulling pants down and off with him. He rests his head against a thigh, looks up as his thin fingers stroke from root to tip. "You're pretty here too." Despite the shiteating grin that accompanies the words, Oikawa hardly reacts, besides to pet a hand against Suga's hair. His pupils dilate just slightly more as Suga's tongue follows the path his finger traced just seconds previous, up and then sleekly circling the head. Fingers fist in silver hair, followed by a sharp exhale. Though Tooru's hands do not pull, Koushi draws closer, lower, encasing his member in warm, wet heat. He bobs his head, delighting in the minute reactions and steady, encouraging sounds of pleasure. He can't swallow down the entirety, but between his mouth and his hands there's friction and suction and prodding at  _ just _ the right spots.

Then, Tooru pulls. Not down, not closer, but up, off. Suga pouts at him briefly. 

“Koushi,” Tooru implores, choked on emotion and only slightly overwhelmed,  _ “please.” _

Koushi in turn turns soft, pout fading into adoration, hands thumbing gently over pink-dusted cheekbones. 

_ “Tell me what you want, love.” _

Eyes glisten, breath hitches, and the dwindling space between them disappears once more.  _ “You, _ I wanna feel you.” Tooru’s hands roam, one locking into place in Suga’s hair, the other moving down to take the ashen haired man in hand. Suga’s breath comes tight and forceful, controlled but barely so. Tooru pumps him slowly at first, then tilts into a maddening oscillating tempo, Suga pants puff against his face, his one hands and lips gentle in their devouring. 

They fall into one another, hungry in their gentleness It’s enough, it always has been. Acceptance and love and belonging stack and build a wall of  _ enough. _

-x-

Sugawara Koushi hears the front door open. The room is dark, only dimly lit by the streetlight past the opened curtains, beaming gentle blue through the night. Suga hears, but he stays in place, silent, shaking. Quiet steps creak through the apartment, accompanied by small thumps and slides that indicate either a very slow burglar, or his boyfriend trying not to wake him. Suga sniffs, though it falls more as a sob, the creaking stops. The steps turn towards the bedroom, still soft but clicking with purpose. The door squeaks open.

“Koushi? Are you alright?” Tooru whispers, hands outstretched and reaching in the dark. Koushi reaches in turn, catching hold and curling himself sniffling, but secure, into his lover’s embrace. Arms hold him close, a hand pets through his hair, and Tooru asks, “did something happen? What’s wrong?”

Koushi sniffs, swallowing down a sob or two until he regains his voice enough to choke out a response.  _ “What’s the point anymore?” _

A moment of silence passes, fingers continue to run through silver hair. The only sounds become the wobble of tearful breaths, and the anxious thump of the brunet’s heart thudding away. “...I don’t know what you mean, but I’m here okay? You can cry as much as you need to, and we can talk about it later, okay?” 

He squeezes his boyfriend tighter. 

Slowly, sobs and sniffs reduce in frequency and intensity, dwindling down to a faint tremble in the darkness. 

“Sorry,” comes a whisper, soft as the dim light coming in, “can we just go to bed?”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Suga shakes his head no, his forehead rolls against Oikawa’s chest, “in the morning, maybe. Right now I want to cuddle and go to sleep.”

“Okay,” Tooru whispers, before shuffling them slowly back into bed and under the covers properly. “Tomorrow then, if you’re up for it. Sleep well, Kou-chan.” His jeans rub roughly on Koushi’s legs, but that he stays still despite the discomfort for Suga’s sake more than makes up for it. Suga sighs, and feels his burdens ease, not gone, but supported. He snuggles in and soon falls fast asleep. 

-x-

Four a.m. finds a room sticky with summer despite the late hour. Cicadas chirp their irritating song though no one is around to mind. Dim light spills, muted by thin curtains, onto the dark backdrop of the street. Past the curtains, a couple sways within their kitchen, crooning gently along with the soft pop playing off a phone on the counter. The light turns them golden, paints the whole scene in amber and warmth from the music to the rocking dance, to the smell of cookies in the air. Whatever past difficulties lead to this moment fade away, at least for a moment. Sometimes support, and a few moments of courage, are all it takes to turn things around.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Thank you so much for reading this far! Comments are always greatly appreciated, and please feel free to come scream at me on [tumblr](https://applepi00.tumblr.com) @applepi00!


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